Eternity: a plodding rom-com trip to the afterlife

David Freyne’s vision of the afterlife in Eternity, a post-mortem romcom where a woman chooses between the two great loves of her life, is unusually bleak. Unlike A Matter of Life and Death (1946), there are no magisterial stairways to heaven or celestial courts, misty clouds as in Heaven Can Wait (1978), or wondrous imagination-spawned landscapes as in What Dreams May Come (1998). Instead, Freyne’s saintly city is acutely prosaic: an airtight, beige-hued airport lobby where ACs (afterlife coordinators) usher the newly deceased towards a trade fair. There – despite money’s non-existence – they are peddled infinite variations of how to spend forever after.

In this liminal realm, dead loved ones can reunite but not for long – each must select one eternity and who to take with them. This creates a grave dilemma for grouchy, 65-years-married couple Larry (Miles Teller) and Joan (Elizabeth Olsen). In the land of the living Joan is critically ill, but Larry dies before her after choking on a pretzel. He is the first to arrive by train to existence’s penultimate terminal – a skyless, Jacques Tati-esque hotel complex with unexplained 1970s furnishings, where newcomers return to their happiest age and are pelted with hundreds of pamphlets about final destinations. Larry peruses his options (‘Medical World’, ‘World of Satanism’, ‘Capitalist World’, ‘1930s Germany (without all the Nazis)’) and settles on ‘Beach World’ for them both. 

But when Joan also dies, her swoony first husband Luke (Callum Turner) is waiting too and she must pick one man. Despite the stakes, this after-death dramedy is oddly low-key. Freyne and co-writer Pat Cunnane take time considering all outcomes, and the film feels plodding as a result. There are similarities with Freyne’s previous features Dating Amber (2020; a witty, queer, Irish coming-of-age comedy) and The Cured (2017; a similarly high concept zombie apocalypse flick); with the latter’s thought-out set-up and the former’s earnest romantic themes, Eternity seems their uneasy marriage. 

Balancing the high concept and the humanity of the love story is not quite managed, partly because of the detached, surreal gloss of the cinematography and the set design. Olsen and Teller carve out more time-weathered depth to their characters than the script offers, deftly embodying the tone and mannerisms of their nonagenarian selves. Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early are charming as Larry and Joan’s respective afterlife coordinators double act, though the film’s comedic pulse, like much else, feels a little off. 

Romcom tropes are tempered with profound ideas, with occasional lightning bolts of insight about love and age. But the level of care in configuring this world is mismatched with the investment in the storyline and characters – the result is far from transcendent.

► Eternity is in UK cinemas now.