'Eternity' review

A truly twisty premise becomes a great afterlife rom-com

This week I treated my mum to a Village Cinemas ‘Flicks with the Chicks’ advance screening of Eternity;

In an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, Joan is faced with the impossible choice between the man she spent her life with and her first love, who died young and has waited decades for her to arrive.

Let me begin by saying; yes Village Cinemas is very suburbia, it’s no fancy Astor or cultured Cinema Nova, but Flicks with the Chicks is elite. Every time I go, it’s such a good time (I saw Materialists that way - more on that later - and the Barbie movie and loved each experience) bottomless drinks, I had the burger my mum the fisherman’s basket, we got complimentary popcorn and Choc-Tops too. Absolutely fun night out;

As to the movie; I loved Eternity. Such a great, twisty concept that I am still thinking about and chewing on, and have been ever since the credits rolled and mum turned to me and asked; “which Eternity would you choose?”

Apparently the Pat Cunnane’s script for Eternity was voted onto The Black List of most-liked unproduced screenplays in 2022. And before he turned to screenwriting, Pat Cunnane was President Barack Obama’s Senior Writer and Deputy Director of Messaging at the White House. Eternity is his first feature-film, and man … he knocks it outta the park!

It’s produced by A24 which I will say is refreshing for the production company who are known for more quirky than straight-commercial, but with this rom-com they show some serious range. Elizabeth Olsen plays Joan, Miles Teller her second (/current) husband Larry, and Callum Turner is Jack, her young husband who died in war shortly after they wed. John Early and Da’Vine Joy Randolph round out the cast as the trio’s ‘Afterlife Care’ liaisons.

And I must say; it’s near perfect casting. Elizabeth Olsen and Miles Teller in particular, had a hard job of playing elderly people who have reverted to their happiest/younger selves - they bring a wisdom and assuredness to these characters who are meant to have lived a good, long life. Olsen also has a Bambi-like quality to her that makes you want the best for Joan, and Teller - though he’s played heartthrobs lately (really good in The Gorge and Top Gun: Maverick in particular) in real life he is a bit of a happily-married and lovestruck fool for his wife, Keleigh Sperry (who documents a lot of their love story on social media) - so I really think this role of set-in-his-ways husband Larry was perfect. One of my favourite Miles Teller turns recently, was also the TV series The Offer (about the making of The Godfather) and I genuinely love that he’s been experimenting with all these different roles and showing his range.

The more wild-card for me was Callum Turner, who I wasn’t familiar with - but apparently he’s dating Dua Lipa, and like Teller with his wife - Callum and Dua are evidently very loved-up and cute. I quite appreciated Jack being the unknown entity in this movie for me, it upped the ante on the love-triangle …

And this movie is a love-triangle, pushed to a high concept and personal conundrum. In fact, it reminded me of what had been my most-anticipated movie of 2025 also sold around the promise of a love-triangle that sadly failed to deliver for me. Celine Song’s Materialists which I reviewed back in June.

Both are about trying to hack away at this question of; what makes a great love story? How do you fall in love, and how do you choose your heart? Materialists faltered for me, by relying too much on the characters of Chris Evans and Dakota Johnson having shared history and a dating past - even though Pedro Pascal’s character was “perfect” on paper, Celine Song was (apparently) trying to get across this idea that ‘the heart wants what it wants,’ and sometimes that’s not logical.

I think Eternity executes this much more successfully, by having given Joan these two men in her life - first husband who died, and second husband she shared 67-years of marriage with - it’s an even playing field, as we dive into this idea of; who do you want to spend eternity with? And Eternity even cleverly plays on the idea of one of the men Joan has to choose from, being the “obvious” and “perfect” choice - with moments of hilarity.

I will also say that while a big criticism of Materialists was that the competition felt rigged, Eternity surprised me by making both men very viable options towards the end. And I actually think Eternity’s commentary on how we match with our ‘person’ ended up being more profound than Song’s attempt at highlighting a love beyond material value … I was bawling by the end of Eternity, whereas Materialists just had me going; “Huh?”

I really do think part of the charm of Eternity is the very thoughtful depiction of the Afterlife … and critically the parameters and boundaries put in place. And that thoughtfulness also gave this movie the feel of a really good 90s rom-com, to me. I was thinking of two peak entries into this sub-genre especially;

• Defending Your Life - In an afterlife way-station resembling a major city, the lives of the recently deceased are examined in a court-like setting.

• Heart and Souls - An unhappy businessman finds a new sense of purpose after he’s tasked with helping a quartet of ghosts fulfill their last wishes before moving on to the afterlife.

I think Eternity is a great modern successor in this space, and it did feel like a rom-com of a bygone, elite, and non straight-to-streaming era.

At one point I wondered if Eternity wouldn’t have just made a really satisfying Black Mirror episode … but to quote Harry Styles;

“My favorite thing about the movie is, like, it feels like a movie. It feels like a real, like, you know, go-to-the-theater-film movie.”

I love the cinematic feel and gravitas this story was given, I love that it’s a high-concept rom-com that was given the star-treatment and is allowed to be a box-office contender because yeah, it does feel like romance and yearning are back and Eternity is further proof of that.

It was a 5/5 for me - highly recommend if you’d like a good brain-teaser, cathartic cry and swoony movie. And where Materialists left me cold, Eternity scratched that itch and then some.