‘Eternity’ review: Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller and Callum Turner head thin afterlife romcom

Dir: David Freyne. US. 2025. 112mins

A high-concept romantic fantasy with a saccharine soul, David Freyne’s Eternity posits an afterlife that’s more like buying a permanent timeshare than heaven or hell. After choking to death on a pretzel, Larry (Miles Teller) awakens on a train heading towards a terminus where he waits for his wife Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) before deciding how to spend their afterlife together. When she appears, however, her first husband Luke (Callum Turner), who died young, shows up with the same desire to spend eternity with Joan. Unfortunately, much like the light at the end of the tunnel, the thinness of this situational comedy, which continues to hit the same jokes with diminishing returns, becomes glaringly obvious. 

All three characters feel like wasted opportunities

After debuting in Toronto, the film will be released in the US on November 26 and the UK on December 12. Certainly A24 will hope a story about family and memories will play well to American audiences searching for some middlebrow entertainment on Thanksgiving weekend. They will also lean on a stacked ensemble that, along with Teller, Olsen and Turner, includes comedian John Early, Tony nominee Olga Merediz and Academy Award winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph (The Holdovers). Viewers who saw Freyne’s queer comedy Dating Amber might also welcome the director’s return to messy relationships, even if the final product is far less interesting than his prior work.

Eternity spoils its potential for sophisticated world building through shoddy camerawork. When Larry arrives in the afterlife, both he and the audience are in awe of this train station’s sprawling universe with its stylish mid-century look. The showroom floor features people hilariously advertising different kinds of eternities, like Queer World, Capitalist World, and Men-Free World (it’s sold out), while the rest of the vast complex holds innumerable apartments available to souls who are deciding their next steps. Yet odd blocking shows the actors at unflattering angles, and repetitive, inelegant compositions become boring to watch.  

Another red flag arises when the supporting players begin outshining the stars. When a new soul arrives at the terminus, they’re assigned an Afterlife Coordinator (AC for short) who will help them go through their options. As Larry’s AC Anna, Randolph displays precise comedic timing and readings. As Joan’s AC Ryan,  Early is equally as sassy and deliciously conniving in trying to convince Joan to choose Luke over Larry. When combined, Early and Randolph have an undeniable spark whose brightness is missed when they are off screen.    

Instead we circle a narrative drain watching Luke and Larry fight over Joan. All three characters feel like wasted opportunities. Luke has been working for 67 years as a bartender at the terminus, awaiting Joan’s appearance. Larry, who’s lived in the shadow of Luke’s memory, holds decades worth of experiences with Joan. There’s inherent heartache to both their cases. And yet we mostly see Luke and Larry deliver stinging barbs. When Luke lays claim to dying in battle, Larry retorts, “It was Korea, buddy. Relax.” There’s only so long one can watch two grown men argue before it becomes tiring – especially because Joan isn’t really a believable character; she only exists in relation to them as their fantasy.  

In fact, one of the film’s more thrilling moments is when Joan considers the possibility of running off with her lesbian best friend (Merediz) into Paris World. But that potentially disruptive decision quickly dissipates, leaving viewers with a heteronormative throuple lacking drama, intrigue or even kinkiness.    

The film teases greater drama through this universe’s basic logic. Once you pick an eternity you can never go back or switch to another. If you break either rule, you’ll be thrown into the void. As Joan wrestles to determine which man to choose - a painstaking decision where she must consider the life she could have had versus the one she loved – that third option always lingers. Disappointingly, Freyne never considers pulling that lever. Instead he opts for a Christopher Nolan-inspired collapsing of worlds whose upbeat grace note betrays the existential possibility his fascinating premise held.