I advised myself that I wouldn’t say that “Eternity” is just too lengthy, however isn’t it all the time? If not the premise, that’s no less than the guideline behind David Freyne’s honest, considerably amusing, and sweetly overextended rom-com, which splits the distinction between “After Life” and “Defending Your Life” with its story of a newly deceased lady named Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) being compelled to decide on which of her two husbands — the smoldering Luke who died within the Korean Battle (Callum Turner), or absolutely the Larry she was married to for the 67 years that adopted (Miles Teller) — she’d like to hitch without end within the nice past.
Every of the fellas has their upsides (Luke is scorching, and Larry is snug), however committing to both of them till the top of time looks as if a fairly bleak proposal. Likewise, not one of the gimmicky themed realms that Joan is obtainable to “dwell in” — Capitalist World, Studio 54 World, Weimar World, (“Now with 100% much less Nazis!”) — really feel just like the sort of place you’d need to spend quite a lot of hours, not to mention a number of billion years. “‘Til loss of life do us half” is romantic, sensible, and offset by the backdoor insurance coverage coverage of divorce. “‘Til the solar explodes, after which possibly even longer after that” is an ungodly jail sentence. Freyne’s hyper-agnostic movie might not consider in heaven or hell, however it has some fairly vivid concepts of what the latter might appear like.
A extra bold — and fewer conservative — film might need used this premise to dig a bit deeper into the commitments that individuals make to one another on this mortal coil, however “Eternity” is content material to circle the concept life is gorgeous and value treasuring as a result of it doesn’t final without end. That a lot is evident from the second Freyne and Pat Cunnane’s high-concept script (an actual Black Checklist particular) first drops us into the Hyatt-like Junction the place souls course of what’s occurred and have seven days to select their closing locations from a wide range of conference ground shows. The choices vary from bleak to bleaker, as all the pieces in regards to the set-up exudes all of the romance and splendor of buying a time share. It’s sufficient to make us yearn for the gender reveal celebration the place Larry choked to loss of life on a pretzel; no less than that got here with the promise of an ending.
However the movie’s characters are too caught up of their autopsy love triangle to understand they’re basically preventing over what meal Joan ought to select to eat each single day of her infinite afterlife: her favourite consolation meals, or a uncommon delicacy she’s been fantasizing about ever since her final style of it in 1953. Larry is the primary lifeless particular person we comply with into the Junction, and like everybody else his bodily kind reverts to mirror the way it regarded when he was at his happiest, which for him was in his mid-30s after he first acquired married. Cute. The sort of nondescript everyman who beloved to complain though he walked by means of life with out a lot need or hassle, Larry appears like a man you’d meet within the buffet line on a cruise ship. He’s as good as he’s nondescript, and the jaded however personable Afterlife Coordinator assigned to his case (Da’Vine Pleasure Randolph as Anna) can’t wait to fulfill and overlook her subsequent shopper.
That modifications, and the way, when Anna realizes that the Junction’s good-looking native bartender is Joan’s old flame, and that Joan is the explanation he took a service job in purgatory somewhat than select a everlasting trip in paradise; Luke has been pouring beer and scrubbing glasses for greater than half a century within the hopes that he and Joan is perhaps reunited when she dies. Which, conveniently sufficient, she does just some moments earlier than Larry is supposed to board a prepare for the godforsaken eternity he’s chosen for himself (Seashore World). All of the sudden, and to the nice delight of each Anna and her fellow AC, Ryan (John Early), there’s some actual juicy drama within the Junction. Which man will Joan select, Captain America or the man whose farts she’s needed to odor for the final six a long time? Like a metaphysical riff on Netflix’s “The Ultimatum,” she’ll get a trial run with each of them earlier than having to make up her thoughts.
“Eternity” does what it may possibly to leverage its heady idea right into a heart-stirring story of affection and longing, however the world-building — or lack thereof — invariably will get in the best way of the emotion that Freyne is hoping to generate from it. Whereas the film’s three-sided romance is rarely fairly as synthetic because the Junction the place a lot of it takes place, its angles lose their sharpness over the course of a narrative that has a lot surroundings to take care of, and every of its foremost characters is left to combat an uphill battle towards the archetype that threatens to outline them.
The forged is sport for the problem (and enjoyable to look at do the “previous individuals in A24-era our bodies” factor), even when their greatest efforts aren’t fairly sufficient to present “Eternity” the emotional undertow it must grow to be greater than a semi-charming thought train. Teller’s upbeat, go-with-the-flow appeal makes him simple to just accept as a easy man who simply desires — and expects — his afterlife to resemble the one he left on Earth, and the truth that he’s extra of a number one man than a characer actor lends an additional zing to the fixed jokes about how a lot hotter Callum Turner is, like every of us might hope to compete with the long run Mr. Lipa (somebody within the film compares Luke to Montgomery Clift, and Turner channels that matinee idol vitality to a tee).
Olsen, in the meantime, has probably the most thankless and vital position within the story, however her mid-century battle bride routine is charming sufficient to make the entire thing really feel easy, and the interiority she rescues from the script solely makes it extra convincing that two handsome males would combat one another to — or is it from? — the loss of life to be together with her without end. Whereas Joan flip-flops about her emotions extra usually than John Kerry on the marketing campaign path (a painfully outdated reference that’s nonetheless just a few a long time too current for Larry to make use of or Luke to grasp), her anguish is palpable sufficient to anchor the film to one thing actual because it runs between totally different fantasy worlds. For his or her half, Early and Randolph each really feel held down in a much less lucky means; a lot as this gifted pair compensates for the comedy that “Eternity” can’t wring out of its leads (and have strong chemistry besides), you possibly can virtually really feel them being smothered by the schematic nature of a narrative that doesn’t have room for them to chop free.
It’s a narrative that’s higher advised by its setting than with its motion — one which doesn’t actually go wherever, and nonetheless takes the scenic path to get there. In that gentle, Zazu Myers’ manufacturing design in all probability deserves prime billing right here. We don’t get to see sufficient of the Junction to disabuse us of the sense that it’s a glorified Broadway backdrop (full with painted skylines and fabric scrims to point whether or not it’s day or night time), however the well-observed tackiness of its mid-century aesthetic, and the associated impression that purgatory didn’t exist till Don Draper invented it as an promoting alternative, helps underscore the concept life in any realm is just as tolerable because the individuals with whom you select to spend it.
“Eternity,” nonetheless doesn’t have any curiosity in that sort of cynicism, to the purpose that it forgoes probably the most logical ending — a shared embrace of the void — for a unique sort of without end. In doing so, it considerably forfeits the movie’s prevailing message — that life is gorgeous on account of its brevity and occasional bitterness — in favor of a extra digestible morale in regards to the paradises we create for ourselves right here on Earth. It’s a becoming compromise for such a pleasantly unobjectionable rom-com; one which’s terrified of without end, however takes virtually simply as lengthy simply to finish up again the place it began.
Grade: C+
“Eternity” premiered on the 2025 Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant. A24 will launch the movie in choose theaters on November 14 earlier than increasing on November 26.
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