Release Date – 5th December 2025, Cert – 15, Run-time – 1 hour 54 minutes, Director – David Freyne
Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) dies and arrives at The Junction, where she has a week to decide where to spend eternity, and whether to spend it with decades-long husband Larry (Miles Teller) or first husband Luke (Callum Turner) who died young and has been waiting those decades.
A mark that can cringe-inducingly age a film even before release is the dialogue trying to replicate the way the screenwriters believe young people speak. Throwing in forced, outdated slang without a full grasp on what any of it means – with even the audience in the same pool knowing that the thrown-in phrases don’t quite fit in in the way used. The same can be said for older characters, if not written as being comedically out-of-touch and improperly using not-quite-modern slang.
Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) and Larry (Miles Teller) have passed away within a week of each other. They arrive at The Junction, a 70’s-style lobby full of apartment towers and stalls promoting different afterlives, and are given a week to decide where to spend eternity. The catch being they aren’t allowed to leave where they choose once decided, or else they’re thrown into ‘The Void’. The pair appear as they were when happiest in life, yet still speak like the elder versions of themselves we see in the opening scene (played by Betty Buckley and Barry Primus). Patrick Cunnane and director David Freyne’s screenplay, albeit with one or two slight bumps, really captures something in the way the characters speak and come across as characters who indeed spent decades on Earth, especially together, while have a long-burning frustration at the situation they find themselves in.
A situation largely caused by the arrival of Joan’s first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), who died in the Korean War – Turner has a natural look about him that would fit right into the 40s and 50s – and has been waiting 67 years for Joan to arrive. Having maintained something of a youthful spirit as the years have weathered away at him inside if not entirely outside. Therefore, Joan is tasked with decide which husband she wants to spend eternity with while Larry and Luke bicker and feud with each other over her affection. Largely observed by Afterlife Coordinators Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early; both bringing about a number of laughs throughout, in addition to the array of worlds available – from Beach World and Mountain World to Mall World and the eternally full Man Free World, with Studio 54 and 1930s German club (now with 100% less Nazis) themes, too.
For the most part Eternity manages to breeze along thanks to how invested it is in the central dilemma facing Joan. You can almost see Olsen coming apart with the push and pull she finds herself trapped between. With the central cast all giving strong performances, particularly Teller whose mannerisms show an inner conflict and doubt at each and every turn, it’s easy to engage with the central question as the fight to spend eternity with her plays out. It does lead to an overly busy final 30 minutes as the question truly dominates everything and starts to lean into a tangle of pros, cons, uncertainty and fear of regret for all involved. As we start to see more of the different worlds at hand, and the lives of the three when they were alive, the run-time starts to be felt.
Yet, there are still a good number of chuckles to be found and engagement in the ways in which the afterlife at hand works. It helps that for the most part the film plays into the lightness and humour and doesn’t feel as if it’s asking big existential questions – Larry states a good way through that he hasn’t even pondered the meaning of life once since he died. Such points are more present in the third act where you can feel the weight of them playing into the pushed run-time and overall tone. But, largely thanks to the performances and the focus on the nature of the dialogue – the screenplay is one aspect of Eternity that really doesn’t seem to have gotten the commendations that it deserves – the film keeps its head above water as we follow the old souls in the effectively compacted confines of The Junction.
There’s effective detail in the dialogue and performances of Eternity which capture the old souls at the heart of it. With enough laughs to see it through its heavier set of conflictions there’s an engaging push to the core question throughout and the design of the world in which everything takes place.
Just A Little Bit Random 