Eternity Review: An Eternally Sweet Romantic Dramedy

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The afterlife genre of movies isn't discussed enough. From films like Heaven Can Wait (both 1943 and 1978) to A Guy Named Joe (1943) and A Matter of Life and Death (1946), these movies aren't just ways to show us what happens to us after we die but focus on the life-affirming elements of what's really important in the end: Love.

Director and co-screenwriter David Freyne's crowd-pleasing Eternity is another foray into this genre, and if anything it's a shame this is dropping now as many will compare it to Kogonada's A Big Bold Beautiful Journey from earlier this year. (Both are great, though Eternity takes the edge.) A beautifully executed and fun world unfurls parallel to a love triangle story where everyone brings their A-game, particularly Elizabeth Olsen. This is one of the purest, sweetest movies you'll see all year.

Larry and Joan (Miles Teller and Olsen, respectively) have been married for 65 years, until Larry dies after choking on a pretzel. He's sent to the Junction, a station for the dead to spend a week before they decide on an eternity to live in forever. When Joan finally arrives after succumbing to cancer, Larry believes their afterlife is set. That is until Joan's first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), who died in the Korean War, returns in the hopes of finally getting the life with her he was denied. Thus, Joan finds herself torn in the ultimate love triangle and must decide who her eternal soulmate truly is.

What sets Eternity apart are the little tweaks to the script that directly critique the concept of the love triangle. Joan and Larry are introduced, in their elderly state, as a bickering couple who are complete opposites. He likes the beach, she likes the mountains. She embraces adventure and surprise and he enjoys predictability. But when they arrive at the Junction they're forced to reconcile all their personality traits to find an eternity they're both happy with. The stakes literally can't be any higher, and the choice is one they'll have to be happy with...forever.

Freyne and co-screenwriter Patrick Cunnane flesh out the afterlife in a way that feels akin to the creation of the mind in Disney's Inside Out, or the afterlife in Beetlejuice. Things don't look too different from our present. A train brings people to the station, the Junction. Everything feels just a touch out of date, like the TV remotes. And there's constant upselling for particular afterlives. Half the fun of Eternity is reading all the pamphlets and signage that flitters through the frame depicting different afterlives from Weimar Germany ("with 100% less Nazis") to Workout World and Smoker World ("because cancer can't kill you twice").

The movie doesn't get wrapped up in the religious politics of its world – Hell is said to not exist, though there is something called The Void – and every religion has their own specific afterlife if that's what you want. But there's a noted artificiality to everything in the Junction meant to move you along. The backgrounds are just canvas backgrounds unfurled at the beginning of every day. And the ACs (afterlife coordinators) are typical civil servants who have been there forever. For Larry and Joan it's Anna and Ryan (Da'Vine Joy Randolph and John Early, respectively). Though there isn't much depth given to who they are and why they're there, Randolph and Early are the perfect representatives to guide the duo on their journey, each cheering for a specific husband of Joan's.

Elizabeth Olsen is more than just the fulcrum by which everyone revolves around. She's the woman placed in the impossible position of having to find her soulmate in one week. Olsen has such a facility for comedy of this stripe. She makes the audience laugh with her expressive face, and her ability to hold her tears until the perfect moment is a chef's kiss. Joan has spent her life people pleasing and running underneath the choice of men is the omnipresent question of what would make Joan happy? And is that potentially just being alone?

Every love triangle movie comes with an inherent plot line: the eventual choice for the heroine is obvious and the other guy is usually just flawed enough to make the viewer understand why the eventual choice is so obvious. But Eternity tries to undo that as much as it can. Teller's Larry has clear faults that see the actor fall into his cocky shtick. Larry's issues with Luke are that he dies his hair and didn't fight in one of the "real" wars. Teller is great in the role, so much so that even Larry is forced to ask why Joan fell in love with him at all. But as the narrative unfolds Teller showcases those reasons. He's dependable and really only cares to make Joan happy.

Larry is the obvious choice for Joan, but the script and Callum Turner's performance make Luke just as worthy of Joan's love, potentially more so. A running joke is that Luke is perfect. He always has a one-liner that sounds straight from a romance novel. He has a tragic backstory. He's tall. And Turner makes Luke as personable and authentic as he is charming. He hates being considered perfect. He gets frustrated when Joan talks about her children and her life with Larry. He isn't a bad person, but it's possible that had Joan and he lived to old age they wouldn't be together. By the third act it truly is a toss-up who Joan will pick.

The third act takes a hard turn as Joan's eternity starts to coming together, and the finale feels more like a rush to wrap everything up than something organic. Had it maybe added an additional beat or two it wouldn't feel like the end credits just butted into the frame.

Eternity is a sweet little slice of life (and death) story with wonderful performances from Olsen, Teller and Turner. If the existential dread is getting you down of late this is a perfect story to quell it for the moment.

Grade: B+

Eternity hits theaters November 26.

Are you excited for Eternity? Drop it in the comments.

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