Ian (Robert de Hoog) is a young man who spends most of his waking life obsessed with death. Having discovered the body of a girl who committed suicide in his own back garden, and from there having had the only substantial (albeit almost entirely hallucinated) relationship of his life to date with her, he finds himself burrowing further and further into his obsession. When he encounters a neighbour (Pollyanna McIntosh) whom he overhears claiming she wants to kill herself, his obsession becomes focussed on her, but his intentions with her are never entirely clear. Does he want to save her? Does he want her to save him? Or does he want to join her in a not-too-distant-future death?
Writer/director Brendan Muldowney previously brought us the grimy and doom-laden Savage, but for his follow-up has done something of a 180 in terms of tone and aesthetic. Adapting an acclaimed Japanese novel and transporting its events to Europe is quite the undertaking, as is his nuanced ability to get us to initially sympathise with such a broken protagonist, and then gently ease us in to the incredibly dark depths of his psychological problems.
de Hoog also carries the weight of the transition from somewhere on the Asperger's Syndrome scale to full-on nec-romantic, and its due to his talent that even when his actions begin to become extreme, he still remains a somewhat relatable character, with his depression stemming from the interchangeable and overcharged ideas of death, life, sex and love is all too universal, and Ian looking for reasoning or a pattern behind it all. McIntosh does good work too, playing a woman who has lost everything and tries to distract herself from day to day life by any means necessary.
From the lush cinematography to the wind-chime-y soundtrack, Love Eternal manages to remain oddly upbeat for a movie about a man who loves women who should be six feet under. It's subject matter may be jarring for some, and there is a murky point midway where it feels that Muldowney is unsure which direction he wants the story to go, but overall this is just further evidence that 2014 is a remarkable year for Irish cinema.