“Eternity” Asks Who You Want to Spend the Rest of Time With
Where do you see yourself after you die? Do you believe in heaven? Hell? What do those places look like? In David Freyne’s Eternity, the afterlife is a lot more bureaucratic than the Bible or any religious text would have us believe. Arrivals and departures run on a schedule and those who find themselves dead, whether it’s a life cut short or a natural ending, must decide where they want to spend eternity. Freyne’s film is a work of bureaucratic absurdism that gives way to a genuine reflection on life, love, and what comes after.
Credit: Leah Gallo
Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) and Larry (Miles Teller) have been married for 67 years. They’ve built a home together with kids and grandkids. Joan has terminal cancer, but it’s Larry who dies first, choking on a pretzel. He finds himself in the Hub, an in-between area between life and what’s next, where he’s assigned an Afterlife Coordinator (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) to explain the rules of life after death. He has one week to decide where he wants to spend eternity. The Hub has daily departing trains to every sort of dreamscape imaginable. From Beach Land to Mountain Land, to odder options like 1930s Germany without those pesky Nazis. Larry’s Afterlife Coordinator, Anna, informs him that he needs to really think about his choice for eternity because the choice is final. Anyone who tries to escape is sent to the nebulous Void. Larry doesn’t want to make this decision without Joan, but he doesn’t have to, as she arrives a week after him. The decision becomes more complex with the arrival of Luke (Callum Turner), Joan’s first husband, who hasn’t chosen an eternity. He waited 67 years for Joan and now she’s torn between the man she never got to spend her life with and the man she made a life with.
Eternity director/co-writer Freyne and co-writer Pat Cunnane have built a magnificent world. There’s so much richness in the little throwaway jokes and sight gags that it’s a shame this isn’t a limited series or sitcom. The production department had a field day with all the different eternity outcomes that are briefly seen as the trio tries to decide what’s best. Each option is presented in a World’s Fair-type exhibition at a convention center-style building. Medieval world, Paris world, and the now-defunct clown world all present themselves as the best possible way to spend the rest of time. It’s so wonderfully bland that the characters can’t help but feel a bit let down as they realize this eternity is not the world they were promised. Although if one wanted to, they could spend forever at the pearly gates of Classic world.
Credit: Leah Gallo
The central conceit of Eternity is so deliciously dramatic that it’s no wonder the first thirty minutes of the film fly by. It’s a delight to watch Joan as she’s torn between these two men. Luke is handsome, charming, and perfect. Larry is…not. He’s much more awkward, doesn’t have Luke’s suave attitude, and, at this point, doesn’t even know why Joan fell in love with him in the first place. What unfolds, the bickering, fighting, and loving, feels like a comedy of errors that’s almost Shakespearean. It’s a fun ride, and Randolph and John Early as Afterlife Coordinators make for a hilarious Greek chorus.
Where Eternity stumbles is in the choice Joan makes at the end of the movie. The film is pushing two hours and, without spoiling the ending, gives the audience the experience of each outcome. Joan with Larry, Joan with Luke, Joan alone, but none of these paint a clear picture of what Joan actually wants. It feels like she’s being pulled in different directions by everyone in her life and not doing what she wants. It’s a case of covering too much in too short an amount of time. Eternity would make for a stellar miniseries that would allow the audience to see what it is about Luke and Larry that drew Joan to them and make a stronger statement about the kind of love that can sustain us for a lifetime and whatever comes next.
It’s always a treat to see Olsen on the big screen, and Eternity is no different. She absolutely shines as Joan, flexing her comedy chops, but it’s Early and Randolph who are the comedic backbone of Eternity. Ironically, where Eternity needs to improve is in its length. The filmmakers have created characters, a world, and a premise that beg for more time. Perhaps, though, it’s like Joan says — maybe what makes life (and Eternity) special is that it is finite.
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