“You have to choose one.” So states the logline on the poster of Eternity, David Freyne’s new A24 rom-com. It is, on one hand, referring to the premise of the film: everyone must choose one world in which to spend eternity after their death. But, as we can all tell from the poster, it’s really referring to Elizabeth Olsen’s choice between Miles Teller and Callum Turner. This film is very proud to be all about the love triangle.

Olsen plays Joan, a woman who has passed away only to find her first and second husband vying for her affections in the afterlife. And, yes, she has to choose one – polyamory still won’t work for these three, even with a literal eternity’s worth of time. Which is fair enough. Luke (Turner), her first husband, died in “the war” (the Korean War, it turns out) and has been hanging around in the afterlife waiting area for 65 years for Joan to die. Larry (Teller) her second husband, died just a week before her after choking on a pretzel. And, yes, much to her annoyance, he’s still munching on them in the afterlife. While Luke represents a perfect fantasy – the passionate, all-consuming love that was cut short – Larry represents tired familiarity and quiet, cosy companionship. And Joan has to choose one.

A24

This whole set-up feels like familiar territory for the millennial viewers that this film is undoubtedly targeting. After all, although the love triangle trope has been around since the dawn of the romance, it had a real hey day in the early aughts. Darcy and Daniel in Bridget Jones’ Diary. Peeta and Gale in The Hunger Games. Edward and Jacob in Twilight. Stefan and Damon in The Vampire Diaries. Millennials were practically raised on the love triangle.

Perhaps that’s part of the reason why women in their 30s and 40s are turning so readily to a new batch of love triangle fare. We flocked to the cinema for Celine Song’s Materialists, in which Dakota Johnson hummed and hawed over Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal. We devoured last year’s Challengers, which saw Zendaya caught in a triangle with Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist. We even seem to have commandeered the love triangles seemingly intended for teens in The Summer I Turned Pretty and Stranger Things.