Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: David Freyne
Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, Callum Turner, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, John Early, Olga Merediz
Director David Freyne follows up his acclaimed low budget Irish queer rom-com Dating Amber with a very glossy, and very heterosexual Hollywood rom-com. Eternity boasts what might be the most intriguing high concept premise of any 2025 comedy, posing a fascinating "what if?" scenario. What if you had two great loves in your life, but after dying you could only pick one to spend eternity with in the afterlife?
That's the conundrum faced by Joan, who dies of cancer as an octogenarian (played by Betty Buckley) and finds herself in the afterlife, now occupying her thirtysomething body (Elizabeth Olsen). The explanation for such a switch is that the form you take in the afterlife is that which resembles the time in your life when you were at your happiest. Joan is immediately reunited with her husband Larry (Miles Teller), who had passed away just a week earlier after choking to death on a pretzel. But she also finds that her first husband Luke (Callum Turner) has spent the past 67 years waiting for her arrival, having been killed in the Korean War.
As explained by "Afterlife Coordinators" Anna (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) and Ryan (John Early), the trio have a week to decide where to spend eternity. There are numerous worlds, like Paris World ("it's Paris in the '60s but everyone speaks English and they have civil rights), Space World, Capitalist World, Studio 54 World etc. Having failed to achieve his dream of retiring in Florida, Larry chooses Beach World, while Luke opts for Mountain World, which resembles the set of The Sound of Music (minus the Nazis). Joan must choose who to follow: the dashing young soldier who made her heart race for a brief time, or the man she raised a family and grew old with?
You can tell Eternity was written by men (Freyne and co-writer (Pat Cunnane) because Joan has practically no agency. She's defined solely by the choice she must make. I have to say I found myself hoping she would reject both of them. Larry and Luke both tell Joan they love her a lot, but until the finale they fail to actualise their love beyond some simplistic gestures. Nether of these self-centred goofs thinks to ask Joan which version of eternity she might like to live in; they simply assume she'll be content with their choices.
One wonders what Rod Serling might have done with this premise. It likely would have made for a great 25 minute Twilight Zone episode, but at close to two hours Eternity threatens to live up to its name for all the wrong reasons. The central idea is simultaneously stretched and strained while never really explored in any depth. It's difficult to care about any of the characters as they all come off as self-centred. Joan is particularly mishandled, and that she genuinely considers choosing the man with whom she essentially had little more than a fling over the father of her kids won't endear her to most viewers. We're never really convinced that Luke is a realistic choice, as he's a wooden character who only seems to have his chiselled looks going for him.
Eternity suffers from the problem of everyone being too good-looking in modern movies. There are lots of jokes at Larry's expense, with everyone assuming he doesn't stand a chance against Luke. But Larry is played by an actor who is probably in the top 1% of the most handsome men alive. There needs to be a much wider gulf in the physical attractiveness of both actors for these jokes to land. Had this been made in the '70s, it likely would have pitted Albert Brooks against Warren Beatty.
The longer Eternity runs, the more time we're given to think about the mechanics of how this all works, and it quickly begins to crumble. Crunching the numbers in our head, Luke would have been no older than his early twenties when he was killed, so why does he look like the thirtysomething Turner? Similarly, if Joan was at her happiest while with Luke, why isn't she in her late teens/early twenties guise? We're forced to consider how differently this might play out if the afterlife Joan was 65 and her former beaus were now in their toddler forms.
Once again Olsen is the best thing in a movie that fails to exploit her talents. Joan is so poorly written that she's left floundering for much of the narrative, but there are a few comic moments where she gets to shine. She's especially good in her early scenes when she's acting as though she's an octogenarian, nailing the cadence and mannerisms of a confused elderly woman. Olsen gives it her all, as do Teller, Randolph and Early (Turner is a bit of a stiff, but so is his character), but they're working with a script that sorely needs wittier dialogue and a deeper exploration of its compelling central idea.
Eternity is in UK/ROI cinemas from December 5th.
