Clever rom-com Eternity could spark date night romance – or divorce

How would you choose to spend eternity? Even trickier question: who would you choose to spend eternity with?

That’s the dilemma at the heart of this delightful high-concept romcom, which keeps you guessing right up til the final credits.

We meet Larry and Joan as cranky, 80-somethings, bickering about where to go on their vay-cay. She wants to hike in the mountains, he’s a beach guy. But after Larry chokes on a pretzel and dies, he ends up at a totally different destination – the afterlife. Or rather, its waiting room.

The Junction is a hotel/expo centre that looks like a low-grade Hilton in need of a refurb. Here a now youthful-looking Larry (Miles Teller) has one week to pick which afterlife he’d prefer from the bevvy of trade stalls.

Choices include the amusing likes of: Sunset Eternity, Naturist World, Studio 54, Weimer World* (*Now with 100% less Nazis!), Paris World or Smokers world – ‘because cancer can’t kill you twice!’

Picking right is super important because, as his grumpy ‘Afterlife Co-ordinator’ (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) reminds him, ‘Eternity – it’s forever.’ Rules are that you can’t visit other eternities and there’s no switching. Though Larry doesn’t really care where he ends up as long as Joan is with him.

The movie kicks up a gear when Joan eventually arrives. Joan is now younger too (and played by Elizabeth Olsen), because people spend eternity as the happiest version of themselves (that’s why there are hardly any teenagers in the afterlife).

Turns out, however, Joan’s happiest moment wasn’t with Larry, it was with her dashing first husband Luke (Callum Turner aka Mr. Dua Lipa), who died in the Korean War. And Luke’s been patiently waiting for Joan too – for 67 years.

So, who will Joan choose? Her one true love who she’s never got over or the slightly dull but nice guy that she settled for? The answer isn’t as obvious as that sounds.

A movie of big ideas, Eternity recalls the high-concept era of The Truman Show or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but it’s really rooted in a classic, old-school love triangle. Partly because of how brilliantly Olsen and Teller physically play old folks in younger bodies, it’s easy to let your mind do a fantasy recasting of it as a screwball comedy played by golden age Hollywood stars. 

Even within the movie, Turner is compared to Montgomery Clift (who starred in From Here To Eternity), while Teller is currently the spitting image of Rock Hudson (someone sign him up to a Hudson biopic, pronto).

Meanwhile, Olsen is fantastic. I’d recast her as a Diane Keaton. We don’t just watch Joan wrestle with her innermost feelings we share her agony. 

Should she finally realise the dream life that the War robbed her of? Or play it safe with the nondescript, tea and slippers chap she shared the last 60-old years with? The obvious answer is to go for both, but the only thing her fellas can agree on is that they won’t share her. And Olsen’s moving, emotional anguish transforms this charming confection into something more real and heartfelt.

Clever and sweet with a stream of sadness running through it, the story by co-writers David Freyne and Patrick Cunnane Strong keeps your ‘will she/ won’t she’ sympathies twisting one way and then another to the point that all the false endings may well try your patience.

Yet, if the payoff doesn’t entirely satisfy, Eternity should certainly spark a date night conversation or two – and possibly a divorce.

Got a story?

If you’ve got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we’d love to hear from you.