Rob Reviews "Eternity"

One cannot help but be impressed each time Hollywood is able to take a long-standing trope and put a new spin on it.  Given as long as movies have been made, this gets tougher and tougher by the generation.  Knowing that Eternity was part of the famous “Black List” of unproduced screenplays in 2022, I was very interested to see how this went.

Looking at director David Freyne’s experience, this is definitely a departure from what he is used to doing, especially since he also wrote this script.  After Larry (Barry Primus) dies at his granddaughter’s gender reveal party, he wakes up as a train is pulling into a strange depot.  When he sees the visage of his much younger self (Miles Teller) and finds out that he is in the “hub” where he has seven days to figure out what type of eternity he wants to live out (there’s even a vendor convention; that’s how many choices he has) guided by is “A.C.” (Afterlife Consultant) in Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph).  He truly does not want to go without his wife of over sixty years in Joan (Betty Buckley), and as he is on his way to the eternity of his choice, he sees her departing into the hub as her younger self (Elizabeth Olsen).  As they reunite, Joan runs into her first love who died in the Korean War in Luke (Callum Turner), and it is at this point that she is told that she must make a decision of whom to spend HER eternity with.

For the first time in a LONG time, I cannot blame A24 for a film.  Eternity is the type of romantic comedy that is what it markets itself to be; no dark turns or unnecessary plot devices (*coughMaterialistscough*).  In my comments to our vendor, I used the phrase “light-hearted with a lot of heart,” and that pretty much sums it up.  There are laugh-out-loud moments alongside some tear-jerker scenes and everything in between.  Freyne’s interpretation of the afterlife itself is one that really gives a unique perspective on how that all works without creating a world that some would decry as blasphemous.  There are no religious overtones here or statements of belief, which I found refreshing.

The chemistry between his three leads is also outstanding, but great supporting work by Randolph and John Early as her colleague and pseudo-competition as he was the A.C. for both Joan and Luke.  They are like kids in a candy store in sets that are playfully and gorgeously designed by Zazu Myers (My Old Ass) that completely drew me in and kept me engaged.  The script knows how to stay in its lane and not overstay its welcome at the perfect pace to not only tell its story but also make its stakes well known to the audience.

This is like Sabrina with a dash of Defending Your Life, which is high praise for me.  Eternity does what it does, and it does that in wonderful fashion.  I highly recommend this film, but given the basic plot I am… hesitant to call it a “date night” movie.  That, I will leave up to you.