What Eternity will you choose?
Imagine when all of us die, that upon leaving Earth, our consciousness then gets to choose from an entire catalogue of different eternities wherein our soul will dwell in the afterlife. You cannot change your selection once you arrive in that eternity, and you cannot ever leave. In that eternity, you cannot die. You just live out eternity, literally enjoying your selected afterlife happily and content without reservation. This is the concept of the movie and the choice with which our protagonists are faced.
A24’s latest offering, Eternity, delves into this comedic yet dramatically complex situation centered on the afterlife and where we go after we leave earth.
The main character, Larry (Miles Teller) is informed by his afterlife coordinator, Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) that he has died and arrived at the “junction”, where he must choose a place and a person with whom to spend eternity from a catalogue of different options. This choice becomes complicated when Larry is reunited with his wife, Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) who has also recently died and is struggling to choose between Larry and her first husband, who died 67 years earlier in the Korean war (played by Callum Turner). The resulting conflict immediately devolves into a humorous competition between the two husbands to win Joan’s affection and convince her to spend eternity with him.
For me, the most enjoyable aspect of Eternity was the seemingly endless assortment of Eternity choices our protagonists had. This idea is the strongest dimension about the film. I could not get enough of the ideation around it!
At the expo of eternities, there was Beach Eternity, where people just sit on the beach every day… Spy World where you could go around living like James Bond… and the Eternity expo promotions staff for Studio 54 Eternity were offering people white powder on a tray to attract them to pick that eternity. It was hilarious and very creative! It got my head-in-the-clouds fantasy mind churning and I think I landed personally on picking one that wasn’t in the movie: Star Wars Eternity. Imagine flying around in a spaceship as a Jedi where you couldn’t die. Amazing concept… and one that lays the groundwork for a fantastic story to be told. Either that or Cape Town South Africa Eternity would be a phenomenal selection!
In this film, however, actors try their hardest and really give some good performances… and I truly was entertained throughout the show. Nobody did anything contrived, but in the same way, nobody’s performance really stood out to me either… and I think I know why:
I have to say that, in vital scenes where the film could have really gone for the jugular in terms of drama, it exchanged that power for a few cheesy comedic moments that for me killed the impact that it could have had.
An example here is the fist fight and ensuing wrestle that the 2 men have when arguing about who would win Joan and spend the afterlife with her. This fight could have provided the most dramatically potent climatic scene and absolutely yanked viewers in… but it ended up being a soft wet brawl involving two wusses vying for comedy, which, as I said killed the power of the tension between them.
Genuine drama centered around Joan’s incredibly troubling dilemma was sold out for cheap laughs lasting a couple seconds, instead of gripping drama as we watch Olsen’s character decide tormentingly between 2 men that both love her immensely. Actors were robbed of the opportunity to give audiences a truly thought-provoking experience.
This film, to provide my main critique in essence, should have been written sans the comedy and been an out-and-out drama. I bet Nicholas Sparks, who wrote The Notebook, would agree with me 100%