When I first saw the trailer for Eternity, I immediately knew I was going to go watch it. There was no way I was going to miss a love-triangle-rom-com set in the 'underworld'?. There was no attachment beforehand towards the people making this movie that drew me to it, but rather more so that Elizabeth Olsen was in it. The bonus being Callum Turner and Miles Teller.
Despite the marketing focusing on Olsen, the plot surprisingly revolves around Teller's character, Larry, after passing away during a baby shower. Guilty that he wasn't by his wife's side in her final days of battling cancer, he has to wait for his wife to join him in a capitalized version of purgatory where the dead have to decide in 7 days what their 'Eternity' might look like. That is probably the easiest way I could explain it without getting too technical.
The world-building is fascinating, almost Marvel-like. The bureaucratic, office-like aesthetic is fairly reminiscent of what the TVA looked like in the Loki series, making it all the more sci-fi fantasy it needs to be, but there isn't much to it because it is an A24 movie, and they always tend to use a minimal budget. The furthest the imagination goes for this film is that humans who choose their 'Eternity' have options that include "Worlds' that fit how they want to spend the rest of the afterlife, whether it be in Casino World, Queer World, Beach World and many more (yes, those are some of options featured) but we do not get to see any of them because they don't really serve the main plot and left ambiguous - which I am fine with.
The film's main conflict is Larry trying to meet his wife 'Eternity', but is challenged when Joan's first husband, Luke, who died during World War 2, has been waiting to see her again after 67 years. This is where the drama begins.
The film is generally funny and not from a quippy script. The comic relief's, Da'Vine Joy Randolph and John Early, are those who serve the most amounts of opportunities to have you laugh out loud, while also serving as a good representative of what the audience is going through while watching the shenanigans between the main throuple play out.
Other than that, the film unfortunately does not do anything new with the idea of the love triangle, which was what made it disappointing. Yes, it was entertaining, but unlike Materialists that came out earlier this year, which had a clearer message and had a bolder take on what rom-coms could look like from here onwards, for better or worse. The lack of bravery to do anything else with the main turmoil between the three leads plays out like any other love triangle. Joan is left to choose between the two men. And that's it. There's no deeper message.
You are left bamboozled by the last 20 minutes, because you would think that it was going to end at an interesting place of self-discovery, especially for Larry. Then, that very effective resolve for sacrifice is rectified by a Hollywood ending that I saw coming the minute I learned which character was the real main protagonist of the film.
That does not take away the fact that it was entertaining. The performances are remarkable, especially in Olsen's regard, because her chops reminded me of how playful she was in WandaVision. The main attraction for Eternity mostly relies on possibly recreating what vital reasons audiences may have to muster when choosing between Team Edward or Team Jacob, OR, most recently, debating between the Fisher brothers in The Summer I Turned Pretty. It will be very hard for viewers to not scream at the screen, making the choice for Joan, rooting for one romantic lead or the other.
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