Eternity has a sweet, sentimental charm that fits David Freyne’s A24 rom-com mold, then asks a clever what-if of the afterlife. When you die, you enter a hub and choose where to spend forever. For Joan, played by Elizabeth Olsen, the question is less where than who. A week before her own passing, her husband of 65 years, Larry, died choking on a pretzel, and in the hub he is suddenly young again, played by Miles Teller. Waiting on the other side is Luke, played by Callum Turner, Joan’s first husband who died in the Korean War and has been tending bar in the afterlife while he waits for her. The setup plays like a celestial version of a dating show, two suitors vying for the same heart while the universe holds its breath.
Freyne, working from a script co-written with Pat Cunnane, leans into humor and physical business rather than plumbing for deeper grief. The emotion largely comes from familiar highlight reels, meet cutes and proposal flashbacks that remind Joan what each love felt like in its best light. When the movie wants to go big, it does not hesitate. The sentiment lands often enough, even if it comes from conventional angles.
Olsen is the engine. She plays Joan with an open confusion that reads honest, then toggles into tearful clarity when the film asks for it. It is a part that fits her strengths, and she makes the indecision feel human rather than schematic. Opposite her, Teller is cast as a soft-hearted everyman, a choice that trims away some of the sharpness he brings to roles in Only the Brave or Top Gun: Maverick. He is credible and a little muted. Turner goes for sturdy charm as Luke and does not quite find a spark with Olsen. You can argue that is the point, sixty five years apart makes for awkward chemistry, but the distance keeps the triangle from humming.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early float in as afterlife assistants, cheerfully walking the trio through rules and options. They goose the comedy and deliver most of the exposition. The movie needs them, and you can feel it whenever the cosmology starts to tangle itself.
Freyne’s direction is bright. The hub is rendered with a pleasing pop of color that resists the current trend toward desaturated fantasy, and the staging keeps the actors close enough to sell small shifts in allegiance. The film is also plotty in ways that undercut the simplicity of its hook. The third act starts inventing escape hatches so Joan can revise decisions on the fly, and the rules feel made up to accommodate the next beat rather than to sharpen the dilemma.
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What lingers is a nice idea handled with a light touch and a cast operating on different levels. Olsen gives Eternity a center. Teller and Turner do not quite meet her there. The afterlife concept could have twisted the rom-com into stranger shapes, something closer to a genre rethink, and instead it mostly decorates a familiar choice-between-two-loves framework.
It did not feel like eternity watching it. It also did not feel like the reinvention its premise promises. Pleasant, occasionally moving, and a little overexplained, Eternity sits in the middle of the pack.
Score: 5/10
Eternity (2025)
- Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, Callum Turner, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, John Early
- Director: David Freyne
- Genre: Comedy, Romance
- Runtime: 114 minutes
- Rated: PG-13
- Release Date: November 26, 2025
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