‘Eternity’ is perfectly entertaining, but struggles with the inevitable

L-R Elizabeth Olsen Miles Teller and Callum Turner in Eternity Photo provided by A How do you compete with a memory The truth is you can t And Larry Barry Primus is about to learn that the hard way After dying by way of choking on pretzels Larry played by Primus in his old age then Miles Teller for the rest of the film finds himself in the afterlife This is not heaven though in Eternity when you die you must choose one place where you d like to spend the rest of time But whatever your version of paradise the beach the mountains an endless art museum once you choose you have to stay There s no changing your mind Larry knows that his wife Joan Betty Buckley is also about to pass on so he asks one of the plenty of members of the afterlife workforce his Afterlife Coordinator Da Vine Gratification Randolph as they re called if he can wait for her before making any decisions Once Joan arrives played by Elizabeth Olsen in the afterlife they can make that eternal decision together There s just one challenge Joan s first husband Luke Callum Turner who died during the Korean War and has been waiting for Joan to show up ever since That pesky memory has reared its ugly head Despite the apparent choice at Joan s disposal the core issue with Eternity directed by David Freyne and written by Freyne and Pat Cunnane is that there s really only one outcome that makes sense And when the movie tries to pretend that there s not it only proves to be frustrating Eternity is light and fizzy with fun performances particularly from Teller who finds his inner octogenarian with ease But while it s certainly entertaining the lack of tension while you re waiting for the inevitable to happen or getting annoyed when the movie tries to pretend like something else will happen makes Eternity feel far longer than its hour and minute runtime While Eternity is interested in exploring the dichotomy between young love and love that lasts a lifetime there s no real depth to that exploration nor is there depth given to the world which hosts it Whoever came up with the different ideas for each eternity from Capitalist World to Weimar World now with percent less Nazis clearly had a ball getting as creative as workable for what amounts to small flashes in the background But the why of this sort of afterlife an afterlife where there are rules aplenty where you can t freely visit your friends or family who have passed on before you is never really fleshed out There seems to be no functionality to these rules other than they need to exist for this plot to work In another world it might be fine for something like Eternity to skate by on this easy breezy chord But it s clearly aiming to make us really consider the complexity of the choice Joan has to make the life she never got to lead with her one-time husband who died very suddenly versus the joyful painful magnificent terrible full life she led with Larry Sorry but it s extremely challenging to sit through this movie without thinking There s no way she doesn t choose Larry right And there s the rub There is a swooning lilt to all of Joan and Luke s scenes but it feels so on the surface that it s almost insulting that everyone involved expects us to believe this is a real outcome for her Joan whispers Luke s name like she s in treacly romantic drama Comparatively she huffs Larry s name out with annoyance or fondness or exasperation or all three wrapped up into one the full range of human emotion and a life lived together reflected in one word A film would have to work a lot harder than Eternity does to make the audience believe Luke ever stood a chance Instead what Eternity does is try and set up the audience to believe that Joan might choose Luke at the expense of the decades that she has spent with Larry attempting to fool us into thinking as Larry voices to Joan in one painful moment that she never loved Larry as much as she loved Luke The movie justifies this contrived tension by making Larry s faults out to be far larger than they are and unfortunately turning Joan into a bit of a villain it s a testament to Olsen s performance that she doesn t fully step into that role All in all the performances are solid Olsen has constantly had an old-timey slapstick potency to her voice and physicality that plays very well here Turner is appropriately handsome a true puppy dog of a romantic And Teller really shines able to bring the hunched crotchety visage of his elderly counterpart to life with a furrow of his brow But the story never really serves these three forcing them to play into a concept devoid of the conflict it demands to work The post Eternity is perfectly entertaining but struggles with the inevitable appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta