Elizabeth Olsen must choose to spend eternity with a charming veteran Callum Turner or a grumpy but loveable Miles Teller — and it’s an emotional roller coaster.
In our modern dating scene of Hinge likes and hookup culture, I doubt most of you reading this ever wish you could spend eternity with your current partner or situationship. But for those who have found the one, David Freyne’s Eternity (2025) offers a fun yet moving glimpse at what love in the afterlife could look like.
After choking to death on a pretzel, Larry Cutler (Miles Teller) wakes up on a turn-of-the-century-style train. Except he’s no longer a wrinkly old man with back problems, he’s himself when he was in his mid-30s. Like everyone who has passed away, he now exists in eternity as the age he was at his happiest moment.
He gets off the train and amid the crowd, he finds Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), his personal Afterlife Consultant in charge of making sure his transition to his eternity is as smooth as possible. There are infinite eternities to choose from, but once you pick, you must stay there for eternity. Unfortunately for me, “Men Free World” (an eternity without men) and “Marxist World” were both sold out.
Larry isn’t interested in picking an eternity; he just wants to see his wife, Joan (Elizabeth Olsen), again. But she is still alive and though she is old, it could be years before she finally kicks the bucket. He’s about to give up waiting for her until he is on his way to Beach World, when he spots a confused, newly dead Joan in the body of her younger self. His wish to see her again is fulfilled, and he chases after her in a panic.
Joan has a harder decision to make than most. Instead of just choosing where she wants to spend eternity, she also has to choose who she wants to spend it with. Larry thinks the obvious answer is himself, as he was married to Joan for 65 years. But tensions rise when Joan’s consultant brings out Luke (Callum Turner) — Joan’s first love and husband who died young while serving in the Korean War. Waiting for Joan in the eternity hub before choosing his dream world — working as a bartender — for 67 years, Luke also believes he is the easy choice for Joan.
My friend won free advance screening tickets, so I went into the film completely blind. If I hadn’t, I would have been hesitant to watch it because the recent rom-coms, like Materialists (2025) and Babygirl (2024), have felt bland and cringe-worthy due to bad writing. But Eternity’s combination of a creative and vivid afterlife portrayal while also staying grounded in what makes a rom-com great got me quickly invested in the characters and their predicaments, despite any cheesiness.
The movie had a good number of absurd and lighthearted moments, using humor and playfulness to craft its compelling characters to the point where it felt like there were high stakes when they faced obstacles, like needing to make difficult decisions and sacrifices. Despite the seemingly ordinary lives the characters lived, I laughed and cried multiple times. This is also thanks to the actors’ hilarious and heartwarming performances. I loved how, despite being in younger bodies, Joan and Larry exhibited old-people mannerisms. They would bicker and fuss, usually with each other, and found immense joy in discovering how easy it was to do squats again.
As the film goes on into the second half, it sort of slips away from the rom-com genre into a drama. Despite the tonal shift, the second half doesn’t expand much from the ideas offered in the first. It largely stays on the same note of Joan stressing over her decision, so the film starts to drag towards the end. There were also plot holes (I refuse to believe this is the Afterlife Consultant’s first time encountering a messy love triangle), predictable moments and a tacky set design — none of which bothered me too much because it further emphasized the garish rom-com aesthetic.
What disappointed me most was the ending, which seemed to reinforce basic ideas about relationships I find to be kind of tired. In retrospect, I shouldn’t have been surprised as it is a rom-com with cisgender, heterosexual white leads. Still, it was nice to see explicit queer depictions alongside the love triangle in the same playful rom-com style. One of Joan’s friends can finally live her authentic lesbian life in eternity and, while waiting for Joan, Luke had relations with others, some of whom were men.
Even though I was unsatisfied with the ending, I still got a lot out of the film. It wasn’t another piece of slop you might find on Netflix. It offered a lot to consider about love and relationships, how they are idealized and how they are influenced by time. I would recommend seeing it when it officially releases in theaters nationwide on November 26. Eternity is an enjoyable moviegoing experience, whether you are in it for a fun and emotional rom-com or, if you are like me and view it as a horror film that immerses its audience in a world where heartbreak and rejection still exist after death.
Rating: ★★★½☆☆
Header Image taken at AMC River East 21 (11/4/25) by Charlie Hein. Fourteen Cents Banner by Alex Carrasquillo.
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