Eternity Review
In a couple of weeks a new A24 romantic comedy titled Eternity drops in theaters. This movie stars Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, and many more familiar faces. I didn’t really know what to expect, A24 tends to make very weird and trippy movies and mixing that with a rom com, I really didn’t know what to expect.
The Good
I’ll just say this, as somebody who didn’t really know what to expect from this movie not being a mega A24 fan, I really dug this movie. We don’t get a lot of romantic comedies these days, they aren’t the movies that sell tickets so Hollywood doesn’t make a lot of them. But when they’re done right, they can be very good and enjoyable films and Eternity is one of them. It can be really funny, there’s great chemistry amongst our leads, it’s heartfelt, and it has something to say about life. It’s a very well rounded movie that has a lot to offer and I think will please a lot of people. My audience was eating this movie up, they were laughing at all of the right moments and they were shocked at the right moment. I’ve been to about 10 secret screenings this year and this is the only one that I’ve been to where people started clapping when the movie was over. It’s just a good natured film, it’s not trying to be anything more than what it is and I found it refreshing.
One of the most important parts of a romantic comedy or any romance film is you need to have great chemistry amongst the leaders and Eternity has that. Our three leads here are Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, and Callum Turner. Teller and Olsen are more established stars that I’ve been familiar with for years. Turner was in the Fantastic Beasts sequels, I don’t really remember his character in those. But all of them are very good and since there is a love triangle between them, the three of them all have really good chemistry. With the film evolving around Elizabeth Olsen’s character trying to pick which husband she wants to spend eternity with you need to buy into the characters, the struggles, and the performances and you absolutely do with this movie. What’s fun about these performances is both Teller and Olsen are doing the opposite of what you’re used to seeing from them. I haven’t really seen either one of them be comedic before and I just thought it was fun seeing these two actors that I’m used to seeing in a specific role do something totally different. Turner isn’t given as many comedic moments, he’s not bad in the movie but he’s not given a lively performance. Two more of the comedic stand outs Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early as the AC’s or the “afterlife coordinator” and they were a lot of fun. Da’Vine was the character that probably got the most laughs out of my audience and she’s so good, she’s so funny and can be so witty and just get all of these great jokes that put a smile on your face. All of the characters get some sort of moment that makes you laugh, they’re all charming in their own ways.
This is kind of going back to what I just talked about and as I’ve alluded to throughout this review, but the movie is really funny. I mentioned it earlier but this might be the hardest that I’ve laughed in the theater all year. It’s just a non stop stream of jokes that start once the plot kicks in and it never lets up until the credits roll. When there’s more serious moments in the film it’s able to throw a joke in there and not break the tension. You feel all of the emotions that you’re supposed to feel in those scenes, but you get the right amount of humor in there. There’s a few dark jokes in there that had my audience a bit shocked by one of them involving Callum Turner’s involvement with the war. But it’s also a very broad comedy that normal people watching this movie will enjoy and have a lot of fun with. I feel like 2025 has been a pretty solid year for comedies with this film, The Naked Gun, and Good Fortune. None of them did great, they didn’t bomb but it’s a shame they aren’t doing better because I want Hollywood to make more comedies like this.
The other thing to talk about with this movie is its exploration of ideas and life. The film is all about this choice that Elizabeth Olsen’s character has to make and it makes you reevaluate life and makes you want to find a purpose in life. I feel like when movies explore these ideas they can get too serious. But this film does the opposite of that, it has the fun that you want but also has those deep ideas. It communicates these ideas through a fun premise in a genre that’s not super popular anymore. As somebody who is 21 years old and in the phase of figuring out what’s next in life, some of these themes and ideas resonated with me more than I thought they would. Sometimes A24 can get very preachy and on the nose with its messaging and I like that Eternity didn’t do that. It had a message and things to say but it was told through story and characters. And I think that’s the right way that messaging should be done.
Finally, the film does have some fun world building in here with this organization and the place where people go when they die. The production design of it all just looks very different and creative. Even small weird things in this world like how the sky changes is very quirky and fits the tone and vibe of the movie really well. There’s lines of dialogue in here teasing characters of higher authority that aren’t shown but it fleshes out the world. Not that I want a sequel to this movie because it does wrap things up nicely but I feel like there’s room to do spin offs and tell other stories in this world and that goes back to the world building.
The Bad
The big thing here is that the film has some very odd structuring in here. The movie reaches a point about 70% of the way through the movie where you think it’s wrapping up and there’s only a few minutes left, but in fact there’s about 20-30 minutes left. If you’ve seen the movie you probably know what I’m talking about. The final 20-30 minutes is important and I think it should be in there, but the way the script and movie is structured feels very. I wish they found a way to make it flow better and not feel like we have 5 minutes when in fact we have 20-30 minutes left. It can make the movie feel longer than it needed to be. I feel like most rom coms are around that 90 minute mark, this film is 1 hour and 52 minutes and that feels too long for a movie like this.
The other thing here is I’m not entirely sure what I thought about the ending and the final choice that Elizabeth Olsen’s character makes. I enjoyed the movie from beginning to end, but the movie did start to lose me and make me nervous when that extended epilogue started about 70% of the way through the movie. I’m very curious to see what general audiences think about this movie and the ending when it hits theaters in a couple of weeks. For me, I didn’t hate the ending but I think because the structure was weird and it felt overly long the ending didn’t hit as hard as I think it could’ve.
Final Thoughts: Eternity is a very solid romantic comedy. It has a fun, interesting, and different premise to it that makes it pop and stand out amongst other recent rom coms. The performances from our three main leads are all really good and fun, they have great chemistry with each other. I don’t think it’s perfect. I think the final third of the movie brings the film down a good bit. But overall I dug this movie a good bit and I think people are really going to enjoy it when it opens in a couple of weeks.
The Score: 8.4/10 (B)
Comments