When people die, they go to a place called the junction, which is a cross between a train station and a convention center. They look as they did at their happiest moment when they were alive. An afterlife coordinator (AC) is assigned to each soul to orient them. For a week, souls get to choose from a dizzying array of possible resort-like destination options to spend eternity, but upon arrival, that choice is irrevocable. In “Eternity” (2025) Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) must choose between her first husband, Luke (Callum Turner), who died early in their marriage, and Larry (Miles Teller), her husband of sixty-five years who died the week before. Who will she choose? This delightful rom com is an entertaining, crowd-pleasing flick and the safe, compromise pick for people with radically different takes, which is perfect for people looking for a light distraction over the holidays.
By sticking with Larry, the ostensible protagonist, for the majority of “Eternity,” director and cowriter David Freyne & cowriter Patrick Cunnane put their thumb on the scale in favor of mature love. The older Joan (Betty Buckley) and Larry (Barry Primus) are depicted first, and they bicker the entire way to a gender reveal party as Larry proves himself to be the slowest, worst driver in their suburbs. When they get out, he adjusts her sleeve slightly, which will make most root for him long before Primus passes the baton to Teller in depicting Larry as a soul.
Teller has always been a great actor, but here, he is utterly winning and feels like a throwback to classic Hollywood leading men like a young Frank Sinatra in “On the Town” (1949) constantly astonished at everything while taking it in stride with enough gruffness to not be annoyingly innocent. He plays the everyman that the audience is supposed to relate to as he learns the ropes of this purgatory that is a cross between “The Love Boat” and “The Truman Show” (1998). He spends most of his time riffing with his AC, Anna (the delightful Da’Vine Joy Randolph).
After winning an Oscar, you would think that Randolph would have a more excellent selection to choose from, but “Eternity” is the best of her 2025 films, which were all comedies. Teller and Randolph are fun together as she helps him navigate his new environment, but she also engages in some absurd rivalry with another AC, Ryan (John Early). It is never revealed what everyone gets for selling a soul on a particular kind of eternity, and even though Anna explains her backstory, it never truly gets cleared up. Do moviegoers need to know? No, but if it was not mentioned, then it would not matter. Freyne and Cunnane leave little details open that are nagging but not deal breakers. Such omissions feel more like victims lying on the editing room floor than lack of imagination. Cut more so the audience is not even aware that there was one.
For the first week, souls are treated like first class tourists, and after a week, you better work. Larry moves from a hotel room with a view to basement digs with dark wood paneling, stained appliances and a kitchenette. If there is carpet, it is old and never washed. Even in the afterlife, the working stiff gets stiffed, which reframes Luke’s willingness to wait for Joan as a huge sacrifice. Turner is attractive but his body of work is not on par with Teller’s work. Turner’s character is deliberately a bit underdeveloped, so Larry has a fighting chance. Luke is a bit forgettable and generic except for his anger issues. There is an announcement about souls seeking counseling if they died violently. The through line is never explicitly drawn for Luke but feels germane. Imagine spending eternity with a guy who wants to hike and kind of resents that his wife moved on so quickly after dying. No bueno. When Freyne and Cunnane give him a monologue to explain what Luke did, or who he did, while he was waiting, it was more interesting than anything shown on screen. Teller and Turner briefly offer a glimpse of a parallel world where these men could be friends. There is a racier story somewhere ub this film, but maybe the filmmaking duo from “Splitsville” (2025) would have to take a stab at revisions.
Olsen looking straight out of the fifties may give some moviegoers flashbacks to “WandaVision” (2021). “The Assessment” (2024), which was released in theaters earlier this year, had far more interesting material for Olsen to sink her teeth into. Joan is kind of annoying. What do you mean that you do not know who to choose? It is always a little irritating to have a character who does not know who she is and what she wants even though she died elderly and should presumably nail that subject, but no. To be clear, “Eternity” is one of the few movies where I did root for one of the guys to win, but it was an underexplored red flag that Joan did not know herself well enough to know what she wanted from her afterlife.
In contrast, Karen (Olga Merediz), Joan’s best friend who never lived out loud, seemed to have a handle on herself and is more engrossing to follow. Again, it was a missed opportunity that Joan was finally meeting the real Karen, and Joan barely registers it. It is hard to believe that this Joan is the same woman in the car with Larry matching him toe for toe. Through osmosis, Merediz has a brassy Broadway presence that injected life into Joan. It is the Joan show and a glorified feature film version of “The Bachelorette” until Joan chooses her path then Olsen gets to flex her acting muscle when she visits the Archives to watch scenes replay from her past life like a play or a carnival exhibit with everyone playing themselves. The Archives’ ticket seller, Fenwick (Ryan Beil), feels as if he held more significance to the overall plot, which is a compliment to Beil’s performance where he makes a meal out of a morsel, but again it goes nowhere. These scenes carry tremendous weight for the characters as individuals and the Junction’s mythology, but Freyne and Cunnane just keep it superficial and light. It is head and shoulders above films like “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” (2025) in terms of consistency, being less stagey and more grounded in authenticity.
“Eternity” is fun, but will dissolve like cotton candy is water. Freyne and Cunnane’s film can have a ton of variety with all the different worlds to explore. There are commercials for each world, and they cheekily inject some politics and history into the story without being heavy handed such as Weimar World “with 100% less Nazis.” Also, the premise of the movie is clearly a cheeky reference to Romans 7:1-3. It is no surprise that Freyne is great at creating these familiar yet fantastical worlds considering his first feature was “The Cured” (2017), which breathed new life into the zombie circuit. He is back with the dead people, but this time, with nothing to detract from the holiday spirit.
