Cinephile No. 1,366 “Eternity”
Recommendation: 3/5 Stars
Plot: “In an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, Joan is faced with the impossible choice between the man she spent her life with and her first love, who died young and has waited decades for her to arrive.” -IMDB
Review: No one you know has ever seen what lies beyond this life. A mountain of religions and billions of their faithful followers paint incomplete landscapes of what might lie beyond the great unknown. Unfortunately, despite all their faith and preaching, even they can't fully know. From streets paved with gold and lined with our own personal mansion to an empty void of nothingness and everything in between, the idea of eternity and its potential setting is a ripe playground for some creative imaginations.
Enter a film like "Eternity." In this afterlife, souls head toward their first destination on a train surrounded by others who have died. In the shape of the body that held us at our happiest, souls exit onto a platform that gives way to a waiting room. From this room, everyone has one week to decide where to spend eternity. The options before the souls in the waiting room are boundless. Making a selection feels like navigating a convention hall, or like attempting to choose a place to eat while standing in the center of Times Square.
Larry (Miles Teller) arrives first. After choking and dying at a family gathering, he shed his elderly body for a younger model. Suddenly, without the love of his life, Joan (Elizabeth Olsen), Larry has a profound decision to make. Does he wait for Joan, or does he choose the life on a sunny beach he has always wanted?
Larry's initial experience with eternity gives us a sense of the rules that hold this world together. We learn about the countless options, rules of the world, what happens when a choice is made, when a choice is rejected, and what happens to those who fail to make a choice. Anytime a movie stops to explain the rules, I hold my breath. Will we be shown the rules or will we be told the rules? This decision is critical for every movie that faces this challenge. One path opens up exciting possibilities, and the other is dull and boring. I am happy to report this film chooses to show us the rules in some wildly creative ways. In fact, as I started to understand the rules of this world, I thought to myself, "This is a heaven I could believe in."
As Larry agonizes over his decision and how long he should wait for Joan, he meets Luke (Callum Turner), her first love, at a lobby bar. Luke, who was killed in the Korean War, hasn't yet made his choice. Instead, he chose to spend decades waiting for Joan. This awe-inducing choice sets up the conflict of this movie. Who will Joan choose when she arrives? Will she choose her first great love and build an eternal life based on what might have been, or will she choose to spend eternity with a man with whom shares a deep and connected history after decades of marriage? The invitation to choose puts an interesting spin on the romantic comedy genre that felt both refreshing and welcomed by me.
It doesn't take long for Joan to arrive in eternity. Before Larry's untimely passing, we learn that she is in the midst of her own health challenges. With the rules of the world quickly explained, the conflict of this film is laid at her feet. Unsure of which path to choose, a predictable fight for her love unfolds.
As Joan tests potential eternities with Luke and then Larry, the pros and cons of each choice become painfully obvious. Will curiosity lead her toward Luke? Will she choose the familiar love that defined most of her life? Or will she choose a third path, one where she chooses herself over all others? Of course, her decision is something I wouldn't dare ruin.
This film is packed with loads of creativity, thoughtfulness, and heart. There are bold comedic moments that take center stage, and there are more subtle moments written into the background of each scene. There are also heartfelt moments that present options that muddy the impossible choice before Joan. This film also possesses a few surprises. These characters are flawed. No one is perfect in real life, and we don't find a perfect version of ourselves waiting beyond the gates of eternity either.
Hallmark has reduced the world of romantic comedies to nothing more than memes and GIFs. Their copy and paste approach to holiday movies has lowered our expectations and given us a genre we don't expect much from anymore. This film represents something new. While it fails to do anything too bold, it is funny from beginning to end. It gives us a choice we could see ourselves forced to make if we ever found ourselves in a similar circumstance. It is creative and wonderfully composed. While it isn't the most memorable thing Hollywood has produced this year, it does a lot of things right. In fact, it did more than enough to hold my interest for the entirety of its nearly two hour run time.
Be good to each other,
Nathan
As a member of the factory, you are taking a stand for human powered creation.
