Eternity, or when love never ends

Elderly Larry chokes on a pretzel during a gender reveal party organized by his children. When he reopens his eyes, he finds himself in what appears to be a cross between a vintage train station and a gigantic convention center, a place where newly departed souls wander disoriented, before being welcomed by the coordinator assigned to each of them. Larry, who finds himself externally rejuvenated – anyone who dies takes on the appearance they had at the happiest moment of their earthly life – is assigned Anna, who informs him of the destiny that awaits him. He will have seven days to figure out in which of the many available worlds to spend, precisely, eternity.

In Eternity, his beloved wife Joan, who had cancer, joins him very quickly, now back in the splendor of her youth. It would seem like the perfect idyll for the two to be side by side until the end of time, but here comes the third wheel... and what a third wheel! Working at the hub's bar is Luke, Joan's first husband, who died during the Korean War after just two years of marriage and has been waiting for her there for sixty-seven, interminable, years. Now the protagonist faces an impossible choice, between her first love and the man who was by her side for her entire life.

Eternity: like before, more than before

Will it be the idealized love of youth, never consumed by routine and daily difficulties and therefore still easily idealizable, or the solidity of a relationship that, through ups and downs, spanned decades, raised children, faced infinite joys and disappointments? The audience will find out after almost two hours of continuous back and forth, in which the unfortunate Joan is put on the spot and finds herself facing a flurry of memories.

Eternity is a romantic comedy with a decidedly existentialist slant, which alternates lightness and food for thought, finding an effective way to address sensitive themes and pushing the audience to empathize with the characters, for a universal plot that knows how to capture the attention of viewers. In his third feature film after his horror debut with the dramatic zombie-movie The Cured (2017) and the turn to semi-autobiographical queer comedy Dating Amber (2020), director David Freye finds a synthesis of his recurring thematic interests: the sense of identity, personal dilemmas, and that limbo between regrets and remorse, in the name of lost opportunities that sometimes definitively mark the destiny of individuals.

Impressions and expressions

It doesn't have the introspective and melancholic depth of a late-millennium masterpiece like Hirokazu Kore'eda's After Life (1998), also set in a limbo where the dead had to come to terms with themselves, but it possesses its own distinctive personality and in a couple of passages it even manages to move with a certain simplicity, thanks to writing focused on lightness and a rhythm that grants space and time to the main trio of characters.

Moreover, the project bears the mark of A24, a production company that in recent years has managed to balance the quality of auteur cinema with solutions suitable for a wide audience, often achieving unexpected exploits. And Eternity seems to fully embody this philosophy, with a partially more "commercial" turn given by the story told, as mentioned, capable of easily captivating almost anyone who has been in love at least once, and by a cast of now recognizable actors.

In the roles of the two contenders, ready to do anything to snatch the promise of eternal love from the disputed woman, we find Callum Turner and Miles Teller. The former already appreciated in Masters of the Air and now considered – though not without objections – among the favorites to become the next James Bond, the latter now mature twelve years after Whiplash (2014) and with his muscles prominently displayed in Top Gun: Maverick (2022), with the added advantage of garnering more sympathy from viewers, given the character's portrayal. But Elizabeth Olsen shines with her own light, having definitively shed the shadow of Scarlet Witch and confirming herself as an actress of enormous talent, capable of making hearts vibrate and pushing us to suffer and grieve with her until that epilogue which obviously opens up to an interminable tomorrow.