In 2025, Eternity feels like a lost movie from a time before capes, remakes, and the supernatural dominated the multiplex. Director David Freyne’s first film since the faintly seen Dating Amber in 2020 is a light dramedy about a woman who must choose between the two loves of her life for the rest of forever. If that doesn’t sound all that light, it’s because Freyne’s film is until it isn’t.
Elizabeth Olsen stars as Joan, a woman who comes to the afterworld to find both of her husbands waiting for her. Larry (Miles Teller), her longtime companion of more than half a century, and Luke (Callum Turner), her first love, a soldier who died in the Korean War. Both men are genuine and good. Eternity is an unusual film with no villain. That is, unless impossible choices can be a villain, and I suppose they can.
Larry is a solid fellow. The kind of guy who makes you feel safe, and is interesting enough, if only just. Luke is dashing, brave, and exciting. Joan has no bad options before her. In a world where we often have to decide between the least worst, she has to choose between the most best. It’s a great problem to have as long as no one gets hurt. But that’s not how this story, or life, works.
Upon arrival, Larry meets his “AC” (Afterlife Coordinator), played by the always outstanding Da’Vine Joy Randolph. There are more smiles than laughs in Eternity, but when a guffaw is worthy, it’s Randolph who tends to create the value.
If you’ve seen Albert Brooks’ great 1991 comedy Defending Your Life, you may well recognize the layout of the in-between space before the endless rest of the life. There are trains, and the coordinators are not so dissimilar from the “Afterlife Defense” character played by Rip Torn in the Brooks film. There’s even a building that you go into to view variations of your past in both films. I say none of this to denigrate Eternity. I wish more films were inspired by Defending Your Life.
Eternity is definitely lighter mainstream fare for the edgy, independent studio, A24. You could think of the film as a version of the once vaunted indie studio Miramax’s Sliding Doors, or Shakespeare in Love—a film built to please, but with more than a touch of the bittersweet. Had Eternity been made in the ‘80s, it’s easy to imagine Tom Hanks and Kevin Kline competing for the charms of Michele Pfeiffer. In our current day, this is an independent film, which points to how far mid-range budgeted fare has fallen.
Freyne’s film is an “old-fashioned” movie, but in a good way. As the triangular couples rewatch their courtships, more than a hint of nostalgia is felt. Not just by those reliving their most loving days, but also by the viewer, thinking of a time when a movie like this could appear at your theater and not seem like an anomaly.
“Everybody gets eternity,” Larry discovers with a hint of disappointment. The best of us and the worst of us get to choose our ever after. But once that choice is made, there can be no going back. Should that rule be broken, the breaker of such will be sent into “the void,” a place of never-ending darkness.
Teller is very good here as Larry the “normy,” but it’s the less well-known Turner who gives a potentially star-making performance as the handsome and electric Luke. As good as the two fellas are, in the end, it’s Olsen’s Joan who must sell the film, and she is at least the salesperson of the month. Long regarded as an excellent actor in both arthouse (Martha Marcy May Marleen) and tentpole (The Avengers series) films, Olsen is simply terrific as a woman “torn between two lovers, and feeling like a fool.” She’s simply one of the best actors we have, and I don’t think that gets said often enough.
Before Joan must decide between Larry and Luke, she is allowed to catch a glimpse of what her forever with each suitor might be like. Much like the men she is deciding between, Larry’s future is unsurprising and comforting, whereas Luke’s is adventurous and hot. In the wooing process, Larry has the benefit of decades of information about Joan. They made a family after Luke died, and their union lasted well into their senior years, until death did them part. Luke, on the other hand, is a near-perfect heroic memory, and how can anyone compete with that?
Even attempts to diminish Luke’s service (Larry points out that the Korean War isn’t “one of the cool ones”) fall flat. In large part due to the fact that Luke is a legitimately decent guy, who has been waiting in this kind of purgatory for 67 years until the day Joan arrives. Again, how can Larry compete with that?
Of course, that’s easy to say when you’re not Joan, who must choose between the man who, through no fault of his own, broke her heart, or the one who put it back together. At first, Joan makes a choice intended to hurt no one, but that instead hurts everyone. That avoidance is short-lived as one of the men makes a wrenching decision for no other reason than her happiness. Joan is momentarily pleased with the outcome that is afforded her. The weight of decision is taken off her shoulders, and with neither man can she truly lose.
Of course, complications don’t end after choices are made. Neither do consequences. And when one leads to the other, this modest little film sneaks up on you and suddenly becomes something more. Something good, decent, and dare I say it? Sweet.
How very rare.
There are films you see that you know have an audience, if only people can find the movie. Sometimes, the finding isn’t at the theater, but in the home. I think Eternity is precisely that kind of film. I don’t worry for its eventual success. Because I know, people are gonna find this movie.
