Eternity
Written by Cameron Geiser
Warning: This review is for Eternity, which is a film presented at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. There may be slight spoilers present. Reader discretion is advised.
Image courtesy of the Toronto International film Festival.
A24 brings us Eternity, a sci-fi rom-com love triangle. We begin with Larry and Joan, an older married couple heading to visit their grandchildren for a gender reveal party. We get some lovable banter between the two before Larry chokes on a pretzel and dies a week before Joan dies of her cancer. Both wake up in the afterlife, a week apart, in their younger bodies as everyone reverts to the age at which they were happiest. Which is how we get Miles Teller as Larry and Elizabeth Olsen as Joan.
The afterlife Hub is a very 1960’s styled travelogue-like airport/train station of sorts that houses people for about a week as they decide which “Eternity” they want to live in forever. There are dozens to choose from what we see alone but the catalogue itself is implied to be nearly infinite. From 1800’s Ireland without the potato famine to 1930’s Weimar Germany (Now Nazi free!), there are many visual gags with these advertisements throughout the film, which itself alone merits another watch. The production design of the Afterlife Hub is particularly well realized and aesthetically pleasing with the unreality of it all, like the night and day themed curtains that simply roll down over each other as the day/night cycles shift. Which makes spending time here and across a couple of the eternities themselves later on that much more comfortable.
The conflict of it all arises when Joan dies and then spots her first husband Luke (Callum Turner) in the crowd. You see, Luke and Joan didn’t divorce or just fall out of love- Luke died in the Korean War. When Luke died, he was still in love with Joan, so instead of moving on to his own eternity, he waited for her for 67 years in the Hub. If you don’t choose an eternity you can stay in the hub, but you have to get a job. So, Luke’s been bartending this whole time waiting for Joan. Larry on the other hand is comfortable, he’s the father of Joan’s children, and he did everything in his life to make her life better. He’s your typical affable everyman, a bit of a complainer- but a good guy in the end. Now, Joan has to choose which husband to live out the rest of eternity with, because as soon as you pick an eternity, you must stay there, forever.
Helping them sort all of this out are the two AC’s of Larry and Joan. These Afterlife Coordinators (Da'Vine Joy Randolph and John Early) assist in helping people make the transition and how to decide which eternity is right for them. Which is somewhat funny that even in the afterlife it’s all about the “sell sell sell” of it all. Capitalism extends beyond the boundaries of existence apparently. The AC’s not only work as comedic relief to balance out the eye watering anxiety of having to choose between two people you love, but they also operate as effective exposition dumping grounds for how it all works too.
The core cast all turn in solid performances, but the emotional weight of the plot rests on Elizabeth Olsen’s shoulders- and thankfully she is more than up to that task. Each character has more going on than they initially let on, and they all play off of each other exceedingly well. The first half of the film, I was weary of where we might tread narratively. Mediocrity? Schmaltz? Cynicism? As it turns out the film rests on acceptance and maturity, the back half of the film is what secured its score from a three to something just a bit more than you would expect. Which is precisely where I've landed with Eternity afterwards. It’s an entertaining sci-fi rom-com with a bit more going on than you might expect.
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.