![\"Eternity](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/eternity_poster_1.jpg\")
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At first glance, Eternity seems to be just an offbeat
\nrom-com \u2013 a trifle about a woman forced to choose between two men. Beneath the
\nsurface, however, there\u2019s more going on. The screenplay, co-credited to
\ndirector David Freyne and Pat Cunnane, challenges the viewer to think about
\nwhat love really means. Is it the passion of a flaming affair that burns
\nwhite-hot for a short time? Or is it something slower, longer, and more
\npatient: a fusing of individuals through shared experiences and compromises
\nover the better part of a lifetime? That\u2019s the question Joan (Elizabeth Olsen)
\nhas to answer \u2013 is it Larry (Miles Teller) or Luke (Callum Turner)? And she
\nonly has a week to make the decision, a deadline that becomes both a source of
\ntension and a narrative clock.<\/p>\n
In most romantic comedies, there\u2019s a clear-cut rooting
\ninterest and a pretty obvious indication of who\u2019s going to end up canoodling
\nwhen the end credits finally arrive. That\u2019s not a flaw; it\u2019s a feature. But it\u2019s
\nalso one area where Eternity upends convention. Because, given the
\nnature of what\u2019s going on, allegiances switch back and forth with surprising
\nregularity. The screenplay keeps rejiggering our sympathies, pushing us to
\nreconsider what we value more: youthful passion or the emotional bedrock of
\ncompanionship. And, although it could be argued that the ending is preordained,
\nI don\u2019t think I really saw it until it was obvious. Although a threesome isn\u2019t
\nin the cards, I can\u2019t say there weren\u2019t moments when I hoped the movie might at
\nleast flirt with the idea.<\/p>\n
Joan is dead. Not at the very beginning of the film, when
\nshe\u2019s a 90-ish woman (played by Betty Buckley), suffering from terminal cancer
\nbut soldiering on for her children, but soon after. Her husband, Larry, who has
\nbeen by her side for 65 years, precedes her into the afterworld following an
\nunfortunate encounter with a windpipe-obstructing pretzel. He awakens in
\nEternity\u2019s lobby, looking as he did about 50 years earlier. He doesn\u2019t have to
\nwait long for Joan to join him. But there\u2019s a complication. Before Joan married
\nLarry, she was briefly the wife of Luke, a U.S. serviceman who died during the
\nKorean War. Their romance burned brightly but his sacrifice ended it. Joan
\nmoved on, although she never forgot Luke, and both she and Larry couldn’t help
\nbut occasionally wonder whether she had \u201csettled\u201d for her second husband. In
\nthe afterlife, Luke has been waiting diligently for 65 years, anticipating a
\nreunion. Now Joan must choose: walk the path not taken with Luke and claim the
\nfuture she once imagined, or stay with Larry, the man who shared her entire
\nadult life and knows her as well as she knows herself\u2014perhaps even better.<\/p>\n
Making things more urgent is that there are no do-overs.
\nOnce a decision has been made and a path has been followed, there\u2019s no turning
\nback. The filmmakers have a lot of fun throwing out options for different
\neternities, each with its own slogan and advertising campaign. Regardless of
\nwhat future one can imagine, it\u2019s out there. For Luke, it\u2019s a rustic cabin in
\nthe woods with a view to die for (so to speak). For Larry, it\u2019s a crowded beach
\nresort where the sights aren\u2019t quite as enticing. At first, both men are
\nconvinced Joan is going to pick them. Then, as they begin to realize that the
\nother might have the upper hand, we see flickers of insecurity and a real fear
\nof loneliness. They even bond over those shared anxieties.<\/p>\n
Although some of the comedy is a little too broad \u2013
\nassistants Anna (Da\u2019Vine Joy Randolph) and Ryan (John Early) provide purely
\ncomedic accents \u2013 the screenplay is pitched at a higher level than one might
\nnormally expect from a movie of this sort. The three leads are all immensely
\nlikable. There\u2019s a great, companionable chemistry between Miles Teller and
\nElizabeth Olsen; an easiness to their interactions makes it believable that
\nthey have spent more than half a century tripping over one another. Callum Turner
\nhas the sort of earnestness that turns Luke into a quasi-tragic figure, someone
\nwhose dedication would cause Jane Austen to swoon.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s rare that a screenplay surprises me; Eternity is
\none of those exceptions. Although unquestionably playing by the rom-com
\nrulebook, it nevertheless wanders just enough off the beaten path to forge its
\nown way. It\u2019s quirky, a little unpredictable, and never feels like warmed-over
\nleftovers. There\u2019s a bite to things \u2013 an edginess that doesn\u2019t cut too deeply
\nbut keeps the sentimentality in check. One of the year\u2019s most pleasant
\nsurprises.<\/p>\n
\t \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\tEternity (United States, 2025)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At first glance, Eternity seems to be just an offbeat rom-com \u2013 a trifle about a woman forced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,7050,47954,206],"class_list":{"0":"post-314417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movie","10":"tag-movie-reviews","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}