Review: Set in a comic afterlife, ‘Eternity’ spreads out a couple’s post-death options like a menu
There’s no shortage of fantasy gems about afterlife bureaucracy conflicting with true love, including “Here Comes Mr. Jordan” (remade into another classic, “Heaven Can Wait”), the wartime Powell-Pressburger masterpiece “A Matter of Life and Death” and Albert Brooks’ “Defending Your Life.” “Eternity,” set in a way station resembling a blocky airport Radisson at capacity, may never become pantheon material. But in screenwriter Pat Cunnane’s clever riff on love triangles and limbos, directed by David Freyne with nods to what was celestially cheeky about those earlier movies, there are signs that the rom-com itself needn’t be left for dead.
In the 65-year marriage of Larry and Joan (played in opening scenes by veterans Barry Primus and Betty Buckley), it’s Larry who goes first — unexpectedly, since Joan’s the one with a terminal illness. When he awakens at the Junction, however, he’s his younger self (enter Miles Teller) and thrown into an atmosphere akin to a travel-agent convention, presented with myriad options for the next stage and a seasoned Afterlife Coordinator named Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph of “The Holdovers”) to facilitate his selection.
The hitch (which is never entirely rationalized but whatever) is that once your themed eternity is picked — maybe it’s location-driven (beach? mountains?) or a reaction to what chafed you on Earth (Man-Free World is popular) — that’s it. No do-overs. But when Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) arrives soon after Larry, she discovers not only a husband hoping to share forever with her but also her long-dead first love Luke (Callum Turner), preserved in youthful brawn, having waited decades to rekindle their all-too-brief passion.
Inside the jokiness of a kitschy mall, “Eternity” spring a tantalizingly emotional scenario: Should the unknown or the familiar prevail? Even the coordinators pick sides. (Joan’s planner favors dreamy-looking Luke.) But as much as the script tries to complicate matters by emphasizing each perpetuity suitor’s basic goodness — Larry being steadfast and true, Luke radiating patient sacrifice — “Eternity” has a personality problem in that only Teller has been given something to play. Irritable, neurotic, decent, confused and sardonic, Larry is a refreshing nod to the kind of spiky haplessness Jack Lemmon mastered. Teller’s old-school charisma in conveying that nervous energy is his own bid for a career eternity.
If only Olsen‘s and Turner’s characters were as generously written; Joan and Luke simply aren’t as interesting. Turner has been saddled with the Ralph Bellamy role, but it’s less forgiving that Joan, even with Olsen well-equipped for Lombardesque screwball vibes, is so thinly conceived outside of the “choice.”
That makes the richest takeaway from this mostly breezy if tonally jumbled film the utterly winning pairing of Teller and Randolph. Their prickly, sweet and touching scenes, which traverse a comically rich terrain from customer and client to lost soul and friend, are the movie’s best, suggestive of the more philosophically commiserative possibilities (“Groundhog Day” meets “Oh, God!”) you wish had been explored.
Not that “Eternity,” after a plot swerve that had this viewer fooled, doesn’t find a nifty way to stick its heartfelt landing. As good as Teller is as a husband in crisis, the Oscar-winning Randolph is her own commanding source of light, enough to sell this movie’s feel-good abstracts and wry commentaries on her own. She’s support-staffed enough of other people’s stories these last few years; somebody please give this world-class actor her own heavenly leading role.
‘Eternity’
Rated: PG-13, for sexual content and some strong language
Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes
Playing: In wide release Wednesday, Nov. 26
