The premise is a good one.  Joan has passed away after a long, rich, fulfilling life and she has been transported to The Junction, a “stopover” hub in the afterlife.  She looks a much younger (played by Elizabeth Olsen) because in heaven, you take on the age at which you were happiest.  Utilising the advice of an experienced afterlife coordinator, she has 7 days to decide where she wants to spend eternity.  There are hundreds of options – Smoker’s World, Man Free World, Studio 54 World, Workout World… to name just a few.  The catch is that one you make your choice, there’s no going back.  You remain there forever.

The added complication in Joan’s case is that she had two husbands.  The first was Luke (Turner), a handsome man who she married as a twenty-something-year-old but tragically, he died not long after fighting in the Korean War.  He’s taken up a job as a bar tender at The Junction and has waited 67 years for Joan to appear.  The second is Larry (Teller), the man she met subsequently and with whom she’s spent the rest of her life with, including raising a family together.  He recently died and has been stalling his eternity decision in anticipation of his wife’s arrival.

It’s a fun riff on the traditional romantic comedy genre.  The traditional formula is for a woman to be presented with two suitors, and the answer becomes obvious when one turns out to be a jerk.  This is more complex because Luke and Larry are men she has loved deeply.  Further, the choice she’s going to make can never be reversed.  It’s a contrived in places – like the way they rule out of the possibility of all three going to the same world together because the two guys don’t get along – but it’s an interesting journey to follow Joan’s thought process and final decision.

Adding to the film’s charm are the two great supporting performances of John Early (Late Night) and Oscar winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers) as the bickering afterlife coordinators.  They start out as simple, fact-providing administrators but as they become more entangled in their clients’ woes, they evolve into quasi-therapists.  The pair provide laughs and sincere emotion.

There’s not quite enough material to last the full two hours (I grew tired of all the “worlds” and have no idea how some of them would work) but Eternity is a playful, entertaining ride centred on a thought-provoking situation.