Key Takeaways
- Plot Overview: Larry and Joan, reunited after death, must choose their eternal reality within a week.
- Unique Concept: The film presents a creative afterlife where individuals select their preferred eternity.
- Character Dynamics: Joan faces a challenging decision between her late husband Larry and her first love Luke.
- Critical Reception: The movie is praised as one of the best romantic comedies in recent years.
PLOT: Larry (Miles Teller) and Joan (Elizabeth Olsen), who were married for decades, are reunited after death. They have one week to choose a reality in which they will spend eternity. However, it turns out that Joan’s long-deceased first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), who died in the war, has been waiting patiently for her arrival in the afterlife for over sixty years, and she’s not sure who she wants to spend eternity with.
REVIEW: Who would have thought that the best American romantic comedy to come out in years would come courtesy of A24, an indie studio best known for edgy fare? Indeed, David Freyne’s Eternity is the kind of high-concept but sweet rom-com we used to see all the time in the eighties and nineties, but has been long abandoned by Hollywood. It’s anchored by a strong premise—with shades of Albert Brooks’ classic Defending Your Life (without being an imitation)—and a trio of terrific performances courtesy of Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, and Callum Turner.
In Freyne’s version of the afterlife, everyone who dies is given a week in a kind of midway station to decide where they want to spend eternity. There are realities for all tastes. There’s everything from a Studio 54 eternity (with loads of risk-free promiscuous sex and cocaine) to a beach eternity (which is like a family summer vacation that never ends), to even a Berlin circa 1933 eternity—albeit one without any pesky Nazis. Whatever your taste, gender, or sexual preference, there’s something for you—although there are a few catches. Once you choose, you can’t go back, and if you try to leave your eternity you get thrown into “the void,” which is just a state of perpetual nothingness. If you want to wait for your loved one, you’re allowed, but you have to find a job in the midway point and make do with some rather modest accommodations.
In Eternity, Teller’s Larry has just choked to death on a pretzel in his eighties, but his beloved wife, Joan, isn’t far behind, terminally ill with cancer. She shows up soon enough, only for her dreamboat first husband, who died young in the war, to be waiting with open arms. What Freyne’s movie does so well is that it makes the choice that Olsen’s Joan has to make an incredibly difficult one, as both men are presented as appealing, even if they have faults. Turner’s Luke is the more appealing one on the surface, with him handsome, selfless, and sweet, as opposed to Teller’s more cantankerous and sometimes selfish Larry. But Larry’s also the one she was able to build a life with that lasted over sixty years, while Luke, having died so young, has remained this idealized vision that may not live up to reality.
All three leads are perfect (check out our recent interviews with them HERE). Teller does an especially good job evoking an eighty-year-old man in a thirty-five-year-old’s body, with everyone immediately restored to the age they were happiest at upon their deaths. While Larry is grumpy and somewhat entitled, he’s also shown to be a loving partner who ultimately wants the best for Joan. Likewise, Olsen is at her most appealing as the kind, loving Joan who often put aside her own needs for the sake of her family but now has to make a selfish choice—with Da’Vine Joy Randolph playing an “afterlife coordinator,” warning both Larry and Joan that once they choose an eternity there’s no going back so “you do you.” Turner’s Luke is also given the chance to be somewhat less than the selfless soldier Joan remembers, with him resenting the fact that he’s been reduced to an ideal in everyone’s imaginations. The smartest thing Freyne’s film does is that it doesn’t make either Larry or Luke an obvious choice while also not making the other the villain. In fact, the movie shows the two men actually kind of like each other as they have a lot in common—particularly their love of Joan.
All this makes Eternity a lovely but surprisingly meaty and introspective afterlife romantic comedy as it invites you to be in Joan’s shoes as she has to pick between fantasy and reality—albeit in a highly fantastic setting. While working on a smaller budget than would be afforded at a studio, Freyne’s afterlife is packed with imagination and the various afterlife scenarios he came up with alongside his co-screenwriter Pat Cunnane are clever.
Hopefully Eternity doesn’t get lost in the shuffle at the Thanksgiving box office as it’s one of the best date movies I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a throwback to a genre that’s tough to really nail (the glut of terrible rom-coms is what killed the genre in the first place). This is one of the better ones made in the last twenty years and is highly recommended. It has something for everyone.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter
