Eternity isn’t built around the most original concept. The Good Place already did a whole 4 seasons about what the afterlife would be like, and it borrows the look and feel of the afterlife from Defending Your Life. There’s even a whole bit that feels reminiscent of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Eternity needed something to distinguish it a little more from its predecessors, but it’s nonetheless a wholeheartedly enjoyable little rom-com.
Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) and Larry (Miles Teller) have been together for 65 years. They’ve built a whole life together; kids, grandkids, and enduring a terminal illness. Due to a pretzel incident, Larry ends up dying before Joan despite her cancer, and finds himself in the afterlife. His AC (Afterlife Coordinator) Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) is there to guide him through this period of transition, where Larry finds himself having to choose an eternity to head to. Larry wants to wait for his wife, but he only has 7 days to decide, so he makes a decision to head somewhere first and wait there for Joan to follow.
But then Joan shows up before he can leave, and things get even more uncertain when it’s revealed that Joan’s first husband Luke (Callum Turner) – who died in the war – has been waiting for her all this time. So now Joan has to make a decision – choose the man she never got to fully be with, or the man she’s already spent her life with?
Eternity would have been a run-of-the-mill flick without the stellar cast. Olsen and Teller exude the essence of an elderly couple so effortlessly. You believe they’ve lived for 80 over years through their mannerisms – they bicker and complain all the time – and are so believable as an old married couple. Turner and Olsen in turn have that new couple spark, where you’re curious and attracted yet kind of awkward since you don’t know how to act around them just yet. It’s comfortable familiarity set against fiery spark. Elizabeth Olsen is such a special actress. Joan isn’t developed much beyond her relationships with the two men, but Olsen really helps us feel what a heartbreaking choice it is for Joan to make. We relate to her and root for her even when we know very little about her, which is a testament to Olsen’s skills that she’s able to build substance out of a shallowly written character.
Randolph is just a riveting screen presence. She does so much with so little – a true comedic talent. Her character Anna isn’t as developed as she could be, but all her little interactions with Teller’s Larry feel so authentic and human. Her whole combative rival spiel with John Early’s Ryan is hilarious and the pair have great chemistry.
I appreciate the set design and all the work that went into making this version of the afterlife feel real and lived in. The various poster designs and displays for the different afterlifes are brilliantly tongue-in-cheek – the worlds without men being at full capacity gave me a good laugh – and the colour palette for the movie is rich and vibrant. There’s also quite a number of great running gags – like Larry constantly eating pretzels even though he died while choking on them, and Luke’s whole ‘I died in the war’ refrain. Even brief set pieces like the hit and run kid and Luke’s sexual escapades confession manage to hit the comedic button quite effectively.
What Eternity brings to the table is the nexus between love and existence. If we can choose the people we want to be with in the afterlife, and we can only choose once, who will we choose? Have we encountered people so intrinsic to our existence that we cannot imagine an afterlife without them? We usually contemplate life and death as this ultimate solitary journey, one that we begin and end alone, so it’s nice to have a film that looks at eternity as something shared and communal.
When me and my brothers were discussing what our individual eternities would look like, they joked that for me it would just need to include Tom Hiddleston. I’m not saying my eternity wouldn’t have Tom Hiddleston in it – he would be a nice addition certainly – but that’s fantasy. It’s an image, a desire, something that looks nice in your head but presents very differently when it’s real. So what would I like my real eternity to look like? Maybe exactly as it is right now, me in my living room thinking about the wonderful day I had with my brothers unwrapping presents, writing this review and waiting for my husband to come home so I can tell him about this movie I just watched.
Sounds like the perfect eternity to me. Hopefully there’s WiFi and movies.
REVIEW SCORE: 3.5/5
