Film Review: Relax, Open your eyes

Relax, Open Your Eyes

Film Review | Tantrums Media

Most films about cryonics ask whether it works. David Ehrenreich's documentary asks a better

question: what does it cost to believe?

Directed by David Ehrenreich | 87–90 min

There is a version of this film that would have been easy to make. Point a camera at people

who plan to be frozen after death, let the audience smirk, and cut to a steel tank full of liquid

nitrogen. Relax, Open Your Eyes is not that film, and it is better for it.

Over three years, Ehrenreich follows Calgary mother Carrie Radomski as she sets out to build

The Futurist Club, billed as Canada's first cryonics facility. The motive is not science fiction. It

is her husband, Witek, whose health is getting worse. Strip away the cryoprotectant and the

dewars, and this is a film about a woman who refuses to start grieving.

A LOVE STORY WITH A MEDICAL KIT

The film's smartest choice is to treat cryonics as something people do rather than something

people believe. Carrie doesn't just read about preservation. She travels through the United

States, Spain and Switzerland to train with the people who practise it, learns medical

response protocols, and steps into a dim operating room to practise perfusion, the process of

replacing blood with a protective solution.

Those scenes are the heart of the movie. They show the field as most outsiders never picture

it: less sci-fi lab, more logistics, checklists and readiness. The spectacle is not the frozen

bodies. It is how ordinary the preparation looks, and how much love is folded into it.

Witek is the film's quiet anchor. Warm and unshowy, he gives the project its stakes without

ever asking for sympathy. Every trip Carrie takes and every protocol she learns reads as a bet

placed on his behalf.

"The bet here is not scientific. It is personal, and the film knows it."

CURIOSITY, NOT JUDGMENT

Ehrenreich, making his first non-fiction feature, works in a patient, observational style. He

visits major facilities, including Alcor in Arizona, which has preserved patients since 1972, and

research labs exploring brain mapping and chemical preservation. He never stops to rule on

whether any of it will work.That restraint is the film's greatest strength and its clearest limit. It earns the trust of a

community that is usually mocked on screen, and that trust produces intimate access. But it

also means the hard practical questions mostly go unasked: who keeps the lights on for a

century, what happens if an organization fails, and what science would actually need to exist

for revival to work.

WHAT LIES UNDERNEATH

The most interesting tension in the film is the one it only brushes against. Its subjects speak

about loving life, yet the drive behind the work often seems to be a deep fear of losing it. A

sharper film might have pressed on that, or let a skeptic into the room. Here, it stays as an

undercurrent viewers will have to name for themselves.

There is also a uniquely Alberta texture to the story. A family takes a fringe idea and tries to

build it from scratch in Calgary, with grit, private money and very little institutional support.

Whatever you think of cryonics, that is a recognizable kind of prairie stubbornness.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Relax, Open Your Eyes is not the definitive film about whether death can be beaten. It is a

tender, absorbing portrait of the people willing to try, and of a marriage at the centre of an

impossible project. Viewers looking for an investigation will leave wanting more. Viewers

looking to understand why someone would choose this path will leave with a lot to think about.

VERDICT: A humane, quietly gripping documentary that trades hard answers for real

emotional access. Recommended for anyone curious about cryonics, longevity or Alberta

stories told up close.

WHAT OTHER CRITICS ARE SAYING

Stir (Adrian Mack, VIFF review): Calls it a "fascinating doc" with a positive view of a practice

some find ghoulish. Likes the couple, but says it sidesteps practical questions about long-term

infrastructure.

VIFF (festival notes): Highlights its curiosity over judgment and firsthand access, framing

cryonics as driven by love and optimism as much as science.

Calgary Citizen (festival preview): Calls it the most Calgary story at CIFF 2026, a look at

outlasting death that turns into a love story.

Victoria Lean (executive producer, not independent): Describes a community that sees death

as an engineering problem.

No aggregate scores (Rotten Tomatoes, Letterboxd) were available as of this review.FILM DETAILS

Director and writer: David Ehrenreich

Producer: Michael Tanko Grand, Grand Scheme Productions

Executive producers: David Ehrenreich, Victoria Lean, Michael Tanko Grand, Justin

Stockman

Featuring: Carrie Radomski, Witek Radomski, Lauren Fosco, Joan Runkel, Jordan Sparks

Runtime: 87–90 minutes (52-minute TV cut also exists)

Premieres: World premiere at the Calgary International Film Festival, Sept 25, 2026. BC

premiere at VIFF, Oct 2, 2026

Where to watch: VIFF, Oct 6, 3:15 pm, Lindsay Family Stage, Granville Island. Expected on

Crave; date not announced

Rating (VIFF): 18+

SOURCES

Stir: VIFF 2026 film reviews – https://www.createastir.ca/articles/viff-2026-reviews

VIFF film page – https://viff.org/whats-on/viff26-relax-open-your-eyes/

CIFF film page – https://www.ciffcalgary.ca/films/2026/relax-open-your-eyes

Calgary Citizen – https://calgarycitizen.com/p/ciff-2026-schedule-calgary-films

Sideways Film synopsis – https://www.sidewaysfilm.com/relax-open-your-eyes/

Bell Media upfront announcement – https://www.mrwillwong.com/firstlook-bell-media-announ

ce-2025-2026-english-and-french-language-original-content-at-upfront