Eternity

 

This review may contain spoilers!

Eternity follows Joan, an elderly woman who recently died of cancer and finds herself in the afterlife with her recently deceased husband of 65 years, Larry. The only catch? Her first husband, Luke (who died in the Korean war), has spent 67 years waiting for her to spend the rest of their afterlife together...

I really loved the creativity within this feature; it just felt fun and playful at every turn. Eternity is a truly unconventional take on the romantic-comedy genre, presenting a love triangle between an elderly couple who have recently passed away, and the first husband who died 67 years ago is a very fresh concept. I was really intrigued by how the afterlife was going to be presented here. I was quite pulled in by the comedy and critique of a very commercial beyond; a vast hotel lobby filled with vendors trying to sell you a holiday plan that will be the rest of your life. This leads to some really fun visual gags, with characters walking past eternities that promise "an eternity without men" or a starter kit brochure package with all the worldly religious eternities there to choose from. But it's the relationships at the core of this that I quite enjoyed. Watching the dream of a relationship that could have been perfect versus one that was steady and challenged is fascinating. It became a real moment of thinking about what is love really? It's not this golden thing that never bears imperfection; love is weathered and steady and constant. Love is knowing your partner and doing what it takes to care for their happiness. That is a love worth eternity. I also enjoyed the sort of agency and fight paired with Joan's decision; it's a classic love story routine, but within that, she gets to learn about herself and the sort of love she wants to be a part of. This movie is unique and hilarious, and entirely unexpected.

This is a film with a clear sense of wit to it. I loved watching humour paired with the visual landscape of Eternity, from the skyline curtains to the sunset advertisements, right through to the staged memory scenes. I think this movie evokes the rich beauty and landscape of a drama while capitalising on the unlikely setting of a commercial-style afterlife. The editing for this is also really tight; it takes a real moment to consider how a gag will land and paces the scene accordingly. David Fleming does the music for this, and it will take you on this wonderfully unlikely journey; it's a quirky series of tracks with lingering moments of raw emotional connection in there to surprise you. The Dean Martin gag is a fun point in the soundtrack as well.

Elizabeth Olsen, who played Joan, is a nice central figure grappling with the core conflict of choice here; Olsen has these lingering scenes of memory where her character weighs up her life that felt pretty moving. Callum Turner, who played Luke, is a very suave gentleman type; I like that Turner showed the moments of frustration his character had built up over the life he had lost. Da'Vine Joy Randolph, who played Anna, does her level best to steal the show at every turn; this is a performer who is exceptional at comedy and has some of the best comedic delivery in the film. Barry Primus and Betty Buckley, who played Older Larry and Older Joan respectively, are the perfect performers to kickstart this movie off; I could have sat in that car with those two for another ten minutes.

However, the best performance came from Miles Teller, who played Larry. Larry is your everyday older fella; he grumbles and complains, but he's also got a good nature. It's a lot of fun watching Teller play to the older mannerisms of his character; he and Olsen have a lot of fun playing 70-80-year-olds who find themselves in 30-year-old bodies. I also liked that Teller's take on Larry is that he's a bit aloof, misses the mark and stumbles in his good intentions. Larry is a very sincere character who could do better, but he does okay. Teller and Olsen have a chemistry that feels lived in; it feels like it has lasted a long time and becomes familiar to us all. I loved watching Teller play the more self-sacrificing aspect of his character in that lead-up to the ending; it was a pretty genuine moment of good-natured love and a big sign of why Teller is such a charismatic performer.

Eternity is a comedy, ultimately, and with any comedy, there is often the potential of jokes falling flat. The supporting cast of this feature wasn't always the strongest players, which meant some of the material struggled to land or draw laughter. When Eternity strays from the core cast or this fascinating premise, it does struggle to pack a funny punch. I also felt there were several moments in which the film felt safe hiding within cliché. It would've been nice for the love triangle element to be a bit more daring in some scenes rather than doing some classic elements strongly.

John Early, who played Ryan, just plays his comedy a bit obviously; there are a lot of scenes that lose their motion because of how Early plays them. Olga Merediz, who played Karen, is a bit of a simple joke character; Merediz is a gruff figure and a tough one to pair against Olsen. Ryan Bell, who played Fenwick, is an odd side character with more time than you might expect; his disgruntled employee shtick feels a little lost in everything else going on.

This is the sort of free-for-all creativity that makes me fall in love with genres like romantic comedy. I would give Eternity an 8.5/10.