A new romantic comedy is playing in movie theaters called "Eternity." Actors Elizabeth Olsen ("WandaVision," 2021) and Miles Teller ("Top Gun: Maverick," 2022) star in this one as an elderly married couple who are forced to look at their lives long and hard after they both die.
After raising a family and growing old together, wife and husband Joan and Larry naturally reach the respective ends of their lives. Although they die at separate times, Joan and Larry find each other again in the afterlife where most of this film takes place. This afterlife is a temporary holding space where each guest lives in a hotel for seven days while they review an enormous catalogue of settings to choose from where they can spend eternity. (Each guest can also request who they’ll spend eternity with.)
All decisions are final in this holding space, and the possibilities are endless. Guests can live on a sunny beach, in a rustic mountain cabin, or even in different time periods. "Eternity" is a light-hearted, PG-13 romance about the consequences of your decisions, the consequences of your whole life, and embracing the honesty of what you want.
Because of the administrative environment of this afterlife (with receptionists, brochures, and coordinators) Eternity is not a spiritual or religious film. But I was surprised to discover it has wonderfully poignant moments as Joan and Larry review their lives and debate about their future together.
The afterlife is not as simple as you might think. Before Joan and Larry were married, Joan had a first husband named Luke (Callum Turner, "The Boys in the Boat," 2023) who died tragically in the Korean War. So when she arrives in the afterlife, Joan reunites with both her dead husbands who both want to spend eternity with her, and Joan can only choose one partner. Should she choose the more handsome passionate man from her hopeful youth that was cut short? Or should she choose the more ordinary familiar man she spent most of her life with?
It’s expected for a romantic comedy like this to slide into the annoying, maudlin, sugary dialogue about love and flirtations and other crap. But Eternity amazingly, and mostly, avoids those verbal stereotypes. I rolled my eyes much less than I thought I might. This film does have some stereotypes and predictable moments. But it has some thoughtful ones too.
Because this film is rated PG13, the comedy moments are not successful to me at all. None of the punchlines have any bite, creativity, or surprise. It feels too timid to give viewers anything humorously shocking or memorable. But Eternity doesn’t seem concerned about being a great comedy, so at least the failed bits for laughs are few. What this film does have is insightful touching dialogue about different kinds of relationships, different kinds of love, and different kinds of regret.
This dialogue manages to hold an audience’s attention without being emotionally over the top or boring, and I think this is mainly due to Elizabeth Olsen’s gorgeously authentic performance. Her sensitivity and delicate expressiveness reminds me how interesting she is to watch when she isn’t playing the Scarlet Witch in the Avengers superhero films (or any Avengers superhero TV shows).
Finding a backdoor to your own personal happiness is a cute idea, and it does fit well in a wholesome film like this, but it doesn’t work as a stirring plot device for me. You’ll understand what I mean once you’ve watched this film yourself. I went through an emotional tug-of-war while watching this, because I kept getting pulled between moments of a good film and a bad film.
"Eternity" is not something I find inspiring or even exciting, but it has notable sections that are entertaining, eloquent, and mindful. And since the romantic comedy genre is not something we see lots of at the movie theater right now, it’s fine to see something like this that’s at least giving some effort to be creative. Like the films before it, Heaven Can Wait (1943) and "Defending Your Life" (1991), "Eternity" makes viewers wonder about their own decisions, regrets, and possibilities. It was okay and will likely be a satisfying watch for romance lovers.
