Eternity follows an elderly Larry who ends up in the afterlife and wants his wife, Joan, to join him. However, standing in the way is Joan’s first husband, Luke, who died in the Korean War. Now, Larry and Luke must get Joan to make the impossible decision of which love she wants to spend the rest of her existence with and where she wants to spend it, a loaded question that makes Joan question if she could ever make the right decision of how to spend Eternity.
The film has fun and emotional performances. In particular, I felt like Miles Teller is paying attention to detail. He’s playing Larry as though he were an older man who had just died. All three leads have good chemistry. This helps the tension and competition in the movie seem real, as there really is no good choice for Joan. Olson, in particular, does great in the standout emotional moments where she has to decide for herself what is valuable in an eternity. It is a tearjerker moment that brings a lot of emotion.
The pacing of the movie was a bit weird as it does build up to this climax that is underwhelming and then tries to build it to another one which is not as effective. No climactic scene feels like it capitalizes on the build up that happens over the course of the film.
The concept itself is very fun and explored pretty well. It delivers information about this world pretty efficiently allowing us to enjoy the quirks and irony of such a world. The film strongest theme is one of faith. What can Joan have faith in as she chooses how to spend eternity? Can she believe in true love, a man who waits for her as Luke did? Or, should she stay with Larry, the man who stood by her all this time? Or will the fight for Joan’s soul make Larry and Luke lose her forever?
Eternity is playing at TIFF ’25. For more information, click here.
