Director: David Freyne
Writer: Patrick Cunnane, David Freyne
Stars: Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner
Synopsis: In an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, Joan is faced with the impossible choice between the man she spent her life with and her first love, who died young and has waited decades for her to arrive.
“What happens when we die?” is a question that has plagued humanity since the dawn of time. There are all kinds of answers to this: a place in the clouds opens up, a reincarnation takes place, nothing at all, and the list goes on. Unfortunately, no one can really know the answer to the question because one only finds out when it’s time. Eternity, directed by David Freysne, answers this in its own way: a transit station where people who have passed on decide where to go next.
Larry and Joan (Barry Primus and Betty Buckley) have been married for 65 years, with a loving family surrounding them as they go about their lives. However, one day at a party, Larry dies and lands up in the transit station as his younger self (Miles Teller) and is given a week to decide what eternity he would like to spend the rest of his soul’s life in. Later, Joan arrives as her younger self as well (Elizabeth Olsen) and to her surprise, finds out that not only is Larry there waiting for her, but so is Luke (Callum Turner), Joan’s first husband who died 67 years ago in the Korean War and has been waiting since then for her. What results is a love triangle between the three as Joan has to decide who to spend eternity with before time runs out as, in the Afterlife transit hub, everyone only has a week to figure out where they go.
In many ways, the premise of Eternity is a nightmare to imagine, where someone meets the multiple loves of their life and all interacting with each other, and having to then figure out who to be with going forward. This is something even the movie acknowledges, having every scenario looked at skeptically as everyone from Joan to the Afterlife Coordinators Anna and Ryan (Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early) weigh the pros and cons of Larry and Luke, while knowing full well how awkward and bizarre the situation is. The result is a slew of very entertaining performances from the entire cast, with hilarious work from Teller and Turner who try their best to win Joan’s affection, and Olsen has a really great time here trying to navigate the situation while time runs out. The scene stealers however are Randolph and Early, providing some of the funniest line deliveries and charming character turns of the movie, as they continue to compete against each other and try to make cases for Larry and Luke. As Joan goes on trips to the two potential eternities with them and both husbands confess their love for her, the romance and love is captured between them very effectively, and the sentimentality in those moments comes through in spades.
Freysne also plays into the self awareness and bizarre nature of Eternity well, with the Afterlife Hub shown like a convention floor that offers multiple different eternities to enter along with brochures to explain how they work, and advertisements on TVs that further embrace their silliness and euphoria, and even looking into eternities that are either too full or deactivated because of demand or being outdated. The production design and creativity on display is sublime, and the cinematography is incredibly vibrant and colorful, exploring every facet of the Hub in quirky ways and providing a lot of visual comedy. The playful score by David Fleming underlines the world of Eternity further, providing an enchanting feeling to the proceedings. As a result, on many levels, the movie succeeds in being a charming romantic comedy.
Where it runs aground, however, is in its exploration of deeper ideas and stretching itself a little too thin towards the third act. At almost 2 hours, the movie eventually runs out of steam before it wraps and some of its darker themes and conflicts are only addressed in a surface level manner, and much of the charm and humor it was running on doesn’t work as well and even gets a bit repetitive. There is a more complex movie underneath Eternity, but it never fully gets to shine. However, thanks to its stellar cast and clever moments in the first two acts, it still manages to be a solid watch overall and a trip worth taking to the Afterlife.
