After my 80-something-year-old aunt died, she was buried next to her husband. Her second husband. Her first husband had been a young man when death came to him. The cemetery where her first was buried was the same one where my aunt now lay, and was located only a few yards away from where she was now buried next to her previously deceased second spouse. Both men had adored my aunt, and we perversely entertained ourselves at the shiva with a parlor game to predict which husband was going to claim her soul for the afterlife (should there be such a thing): her young love or the one she got to spend decades with. We imagined a battle royale. As it turns out, this scenario is the basic plot of Eternity, a new rom-com starring Elizabeth Olsen.
In Eternity, Joan (Olsen) and Larry (Miles Teller) have been married 65 years when Larry dies after choking on a pretzel. Afterwards, he finds himself in a cavernous train depot where he meets his Afterlife Coordinator (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who fills him in on his whereabouts. It turns out he’s in a busy way station in between mortality and immortality, where he is permitted one week to decide where to spend all eternity. During that week, Larry gets to peruse a convention center-like exhibition hall where vendors from hundreds of potential afterlives hawk their attractions and dole out pamphlets to the droves of the recently deceased, who are all trying to decide the same thing. Options range from mundane choices such as mountains, beaches, and lakes to more esoteric ones like Yacht World, Smokers World, Studio 54, Hermits World, and Queer World. Every step onto the convention floor brings chuckles for the imaginative array of potential afterlives. The thing is that once the dearly departed has made a selection there’s no taking it back. They will be there for all … eternity.
Coincidentally, Joan, who had been suffering a terminal illness, dies within days of Larry. Another odd thing about this afterlife is that the deceased’s body adopts the form of the time when he or she was the happiest during life. This means that the old married couple, Joan and Larry, (who are played by Barry Primus and Betty Buckley in the film’s opening), now resemble Olsen and Teller in their present-day forms. Unbeknownst to either of them, Joan’s first husband Luke (Callum Turner) has been waiting in the way station all the 67 years since his death for Joan to return to him. Both men are still smitten and thus begins the battle royale.
Adapted by director David Freyne from a Black List script by Pat Cunnane, Eternity bears a cute premise that becomes worn down through repetition. Jokes and ideas are recycled often enough that they soon seem like redundancies rather than running gags. Freyne’s world-building is imaginative and playful and the performances are all top-notch. Olsen has rapidly become one of our era’s leading stars due to her expansive emotional range. And Teller, who excels in Eternity, might be well-advised to make a whiplash turn from his many macho dramatic roles to more lightweight comedy. Once the parameters of eternity are spelled out and the basic conflict delineated, the remainder of the movie grows static as Joan tries to make her agonizing choice – without hurting one of the men she loves. What kind of eternal love does she want: the smoldering heat of young love or the comforting intimacy of familiar attachment? It’s the question this film wants to leave viewers pondering – unless, of course, they opt to spend eternity in Hermits World.
Eternity opens in theatres on November 26.
Eternity
2025, PG-13, 112 min. Directed by David Freyne. Starring Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, Callum Turner, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, John Early, Christie Burke, Danny Mac.
