Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen and Callum Turner shine in this rom-com across ages

There are different parts of David Freyne’s Eternity that can pull viewers out of the film. The first is the question of why everyone looked young and happening in the afterlife. That was quickly explained by the AC (afterlife coordinator). People apparently choose to appear as their happiest selves in the afterlife, which explains the abundance of 10-year-old boys and the complete lack of teenagers, according to the AC.

That leads to the second element which prompts the mind to wander. As one watches the dilemma of the three protagonists on screen, one wonders what one would do in a similar position. Larry (Barry Primus) and Joan (Betty Buckley) have been married for 65 years and as they drive to a gender reveal party of their great grandchild, they bicker like the old married couple they are.

Larry chokes on a pretzel and dies, waking up as a younger man (Miles Teller) on a train that halts at an incredibly busy station where everyone seems to be heading somewhere, except Larry. It takes him some time to realise he is dead, and that he has a week at the Junction to choose his eternity.

A still from the film
| Photo Credit:
A24/YouTube

His AC, Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) takes him through the rules and regulations of the Junction, where his room is very comfortable with a fabulous view and there are his favourite clothes in the closet. The television offers some bizarre programming.  

However, as the barman, Luke (Callum Turner) tells Larry, choosing an eternity is a “one and done” affair from which there is no coming back. Larry decides to wait for Joan so they can choose an eternity to spend together — even though they cannot agree on the mountains, which Joan prefers, or the sea, which Larry prefers. Just as Larry decides to go to the beachside eternity and get things ready for Joan, he sees her stepping off the train.

When a younger Joan (Elizabeth Olsen), reaches the Junction, (accepting she is dead much faster than Larry did), there is a complication in the form of Luke, her first husband who died in the Korean War. He has been waiting for the past 67 years for Joan.

After hurried consultations with the higher powers—who, incidentally, is called Kevin according to Joan’s AC—Ryan (John Early) makes a special dispensation for Joan. She has a week to decide who to spend her eternity with between Larry and Luke.

Existential questions arise: who represents the greater love — the one who got away or the one you built a life with; the grand romance or the everyday care? That these questions are framed in the time-honoured rom-com template makes all the philosophy much more easily palatable. There are jokes flying thick and fast including a running gag about a Karen (Olga Merediz).

Teller, Olsen and Turner exhibit excellent chemistry and riff off each other marvellously. The production design presents an afterlife that is neat, clean, and not particularly terrifying. Though the void is mentioned, it never appears. The middle section sags slightly, but the leads are so charming, that one’s musings drift not into the troughs of existential angst but into the comfortable spaces of ‘what if’, and that makes it all good.

Eternity is currently running in theatres