The Final Pretzel After sixty years of a “cantankerous” but committed marriage, Larry (Barry Primus) and Joan (Betty Buckley) head to their grandchild’s gender reveal party. In a twist of dark fate, Larry indulges in one pretzel too many and ends up beating his wife up the “heavenly escalator.”<\/p>\n
The Ideal Afterlife In this version of the afterlife, everyone arrives at the age they were their happiest. Larry is suddenly transformed back into his 28-year-old self (Miles Teller) and finds himself in a bureaucratic waiting room that resembles an “Ideal Homes Exhibition.” Guided by the charismatic and scene-stealing counselor Anna (Da\u2019Vine Joy Randolph), Larry is presented with a series of stalls, each offering a different themed “eternity” to spend for the rest of time.<\/p>\n
The Arrival of Choice While Larry waits at a bar to ponder his options, he meets the charming barman Luke (Callum Turner). Soon, Joan follows Larry into the afterlife, arriving in her youthful prime as well (Elizabeth Olsen). The plan seems simple: pick a stall and live happily ever after. However, the reunion is shattered by a revelation\u2014Luke is actually Joan’s first husband, a soldier killed in the Korean War who has been waiting seven decades for her arrival.<\/p>\n
The Joust for Forever What follows is a poignant and witty exploration of the “bright spark” of first love versus the “sustaining flame” of a lifetime marriage. As Larry and Luke engage in a series of verbal and physical “jousts” for her heart, Joan retreats to the Memory Archives to revisit her history with both men.<\/p>\n
Between the humor of the afterlife\u2019s “twee” bureaucracy and the existential weight of a thousand-year future, Joan must decide: Do you choose the man who represents the perfect, unblemished memory of what could have been, or the man who represents the messy, “dull,” and pretzel-choked reality of what was?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"