Eternity (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

Eternity

ETERNITY (2025)

Starring Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, John Early, Olga Merediz, Barry Primus, Betty Buckley, Christie Burke, Danny Mac, Damon Scott Johnson, Lucy Turnbull, Carson Bokenfohr, Meg Roe, Tailya Evans, Panta Mosleh, Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez, Ryan Beil, Mark Pariñas, Brett Willis, Noah Bromley and David Z. Cohen.

Screenplay by Patrick Cunnane and David Freyne.

Directed by David Freyne.

Distributed by A24. 114 minutes. Rated PG-13.

“Heaven is a place / A place where nothing / Nothing ever happens.” Talking Heads

In Hollywood, Heaven is often a confounding bureaucracy. In movies like Heaven Can Wait, Beetlejuice, Coco and Defending Your Life, or TV shows like Drop Dead Diva and The Good Place, the pearly gates tend to run with all the efficiency of the DMV.

So, Eternity is not exactly treading on pristine soil. However, it is still fertile ground, and this after-life romantic comedy works surprisingly well.

Eternity gives a good approximation of how nirvana might run if it were owned by Jeff Besos. It attempts to be all things for all people, but its paradise is slick and consumerist and bound by a whole series of arbitrary rules.

Truth to be told, the inner workings of Heaven are probably the most consistently amusing part of Eternity, even more so than the romantic conundrum at its center.

The film tells the story of Larry and Joan, an elderly couple who have been married for 60 years They die within a week of each other. (They are played by Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen, because in Heaven you are reverted to the age in which you were most happy.)

Larry dies first of a surprise heart attack, even though Joan was already terminally ill. Once in Heaven, he is informed by his personal “afterlife coordinator” (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) that you can only pick one eternal afterlife, so pick carefully, because that will be the rest of your existence.

It seems that heaven is made up of a series of theme park worlds – such as Beach World, Capitalist World, Man-Free World (that one is popular!), Queer World, Outdoor World, Wine World, Museum World, Nudist World, Weimar World (“now with 100% less Nazis!”), Mountain World, Studio 54 World and Smoker’s World (because cigarettes can't kill you twice). You can also live in a stylized Paris of the 1960s in which everyone speaks English.

The thing is, once you choose an existence, that is it for the rest of eternity. If you ever try to get out of that eternity, you will be cast into the void. Which brings up the question – is paradise still paradise if it is constant? Even the most wonderful things must get boring after a while, right? (As one spirit says while trying to break out of Museum World, “I can’t look at another painting!”)

Larry is trying to decide on a perfect eternity where to meet Joan when she dies. However, soon before he is set to leave Joan appears in Heaven. Larry expects that they will go off to their eternity together. However, it turns out that Luke (Callum Turner), her first husband who died in war soon after their marriage has been waiting there for her for 60 years.

So Elizabeth must choose – does she spend eternity with the man she has lived with for 60 years and has grown into a comfortable squabbling existence with little passion left, or does she go off with the exciting guy she never got the chance to really get to know?

It’s an interesting moral quandary, and the actors have a good vibe together (particularly Teller and Olsen), but honestly the ending is not all that hard to figure out. But that’s okay. This particular film’s grace is in the journey, not the destination. And while the concept gets away from the film a bit towards the end – some of the hard-and-fast rules made earlier turn out to be more like guidelines – Eternity is a surprisingly good ride. 

Jay S. Jacobs

Copyright ©2025 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: November 25, 2025.