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Well this was cute! I really loved the concept of this movie, the characters were great (especially Larry), I thought this was funny, heartfelt, had really amazing and purposeful cinematography, and most of the acting performances were very believable and endearing. I did truly love that Joan ended up with Larry in the end. He was not only the better choice as a *person*, but the *amount* of happiness that she experienced with him just *had* to have taken priority over the *intensity* of happiness she shared with Luke. It’s absolutely true that many people* *are technically their happiest in their younger years with their first loves, during their first *everythings, *and before all the responsibilities of regular life really take place. But if you spend an entire *lifetime* with someone, go through those ups and downs, have your boring moments and your exciting ones, and there’s almost nothing you don’t know about eachother in the end, that’s the *true* measure of* *enduring love and contentment. You may never reach the highest highs of emotion, but you’re safe and comfortable. That matters more than fleeting memories, and thoughts of what could’ve been. If life was only worth living at your happiest moment, you’d be dead the second it ended.  But we don’t die. We stay here and experience life, because *all *of it* *is worth being here. Not just when it’s perfect. The complexity of life is what *makes* it. And we are culminations of all that complexity.  Acceptance of *that* is all we need. Now that being said, I think my biggest criticism with this movie is the whole “don’t escape your eternity, or you’ll spend it in the void” thing*. *Like you’re gonna tell me that there are only a *handful *of outliers every so often who try and escape their eternities??? There aren’t entire factions of resistance groups inside *and *outside each eternity trying to overthrow the afterlife system for being so rigid and cold in its methods, and forcing people into accepting eternal life in the* *first place, rather than allowing people to experience a more free afterlife that gives them the *option* of a true death? And this is made even more egregious when you think about the fact that even when people *do* escape their eternities, there aren’t more widespread and efficient systems in place to capture escapees and send them to the void, in the same way the state uses egregious amounts of law enforcement to keep resisters in line in the land of the living by throwing them in prisons. Just an aspect that is very* *overlooked for me, even though it’s something you expect Joan’s story to explore during the movie’s ending (an ending that was also surprisingly rushed in every way?? For some reason???). I understand this depiction of the afterlife is meant to be more simplistic and comedic than anything else, so it’s not going to be deeply philosophical, or explorative of the world set up. But that’s also the reason why I only *liked* the movie as a whole, but didn’t exactly *love *it. Essentially, the narrative of this film is very easy to understand, but for a setting with this much *potential?* I think I wanted *more*. Overall though, this is really the type of thing I think anyone could enjoy, and I *am* a sucker for shit that contemplates the meaning of life, so I can certainly appreciate all that it does. So I would recommend watching this film, and *maybe* without thinking too deeply into its premise in the ways that* I *did. Nice!

What in the hell….

If you weren’t a nerdy, chronically online middle schooler who was obsessed with Stranger Things when this movie came out, my condolences go out to you.

“Well, the architecture, that interests me. I feel the grandeur, the…the mystery, the intended emotional effect, it’s…and it’s like someone has shone a story at me that I do not believe. It’s built on the empty promise of a child’s fairy tale, filled with malevolence and misogyny and homophobia, and its justified untold acts of violence and cruelty, while all the while, and *still*, hiding its own shameful acts. So like an ornery mule kicking back, I want to pick it apart and pop its perfidious bubble of belief, and get to a truth I can swallow without choking.”