The initial idea is brilliant, but can the film carry this big premise?
In David Freyne's film “Eternity,” the deceased end up not in heaven or in the void, but in a retro afterlife that looks like a 1960s convention center. There you appear at the age at which you were supposedly happiest – complete with an “afterlife consultant” who is supposed to sell you the right “eternity”.
However, the recently deceased Larry (Miles Teller) refuses to choose an afterlife package until his wife Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) comes along. When she arrives, also as a teenager, her first husband Luke (Callum Turner) suddenly stands in front of her – killed in the war, waiting for decades, and still just as beautiful as the memory has preserved him. Joan has to decide who she wants to spend eternity with: the tragically lost childhood sweetheart or the man with whom she shared a life?
Scene from Eternity
Great idea, sketchy logic
Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen and Callum Turner carry the film, with Turner appearing almost magnetic with his classic Hollywood beauty – so magnetic that you occasionally forget that the story doesn't quite come together around him. Olsen manages to credibly show her character's conflict, while Teller provides the grounded counterpart. Oscar winner Da'Vine Joy Randolph shines in her role as an afterlife consultant.
The script comes from director David Freyne himself, who starts with a great idea: a bureaucratized, slightly broken afterlife full of fantasy worlds in which people have to choose their eternity. The premise is clever, playful, full of potential – and that's exactly why it's frustrating that so many of the crucial rules of its own world remain unclear. One in particular: Why can't the three of them just go into eternity together? The film never explains it.
Visually, “Eternity” is lovingly designed: the 60s set design, the absurd afterlife offerings – all of this looks fresh and original. Freyne has a good eye for atmosphere and a charming idea of what a modern fantasy afterlife might look like. But in the implementation, the film repeatedly stumbles over its own rules. The emotional impact of the love triangle evaporates. The logic often seems contrived so that the conflict remains.
Scene from “Eternity”
Conclusion
“Eternity” has everything a good film needs: a brilliant idea, romantic potential, philosophical appeal. But the script leaves questions unanswered. In the end you're left with a nicely staged film with great ideas that doesn't really get going. It's partly funny and can be fun as a light rom com – it doesn't work as a deep drama.
3 out of 5 incomprehensible rules