Joan Cutler has to make an impossible decision in “Eternity.” The newly deceased character, played by Elizabeth Olsen, has one week to decide who she wants to spend her next life with and two husbands are in hiding hoping she will choose them. Luke is the courageous man who died in the Korean War just as they were starting their life together. Larry is another, kind of common, kind of crazy, but the man she was married to for 65 years.
Obviously even death is no respite from worldly puzzles like love triangles. It’s definitely messy and confusing for those involved, but it’s one of the best storytelling setups for a screwball comedy. And this particular film, imaginative and cleverly whimsical with a completely charming cast, delivers on the promise. lucky us.
The majority of the film takes place at the Junction, a comically generic, Brutalist-style hotel/convention center, expo-style trade show in which recently deceased people shop for their afterlife choices. There you are greeted by a reincarnation coordinator who explains what is happening. The options are vast and entertainingly distinctive: Paris Land, Studio 54 World, Mountain Town, Weimar World are just a few. The big problem is that your decision is final.
The story is by screenwriter Patrick Cunen who further developed it with director David Frayne. The film wears many influences on its colorful, quirky sleeve, including Albert Brooks’s “Defending Your Life.”
We meet Joan and Larry briefly when they are octogenarians, heading to a family party and fighting over whether to go to the beach or the mountains. They mostly seem tired of each other, two people who only stay together because their lives are so intertwined and, you know, what else are they going to do? Joan doesn’t have much time left, she is dying of cancer, and Larry is prepared to care for her as long as necessary. Then he is the first to die.
Larry’s holdover week is about to end when Joan arrives at the Junction where her AC, Ryan, says he has been waiting for her for 67 years.
Ryan is also Luke’s AC, who, it turns out, is waiting for Joan to arrive. This is the ultimate romantic gesture. And Joan, now young again, is deeply impressed by her first love, which Larry watches in amazement. It’s hard not to think of the episode “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in which another Larry comes to the conclusion that he would prefer to be alone after death. However, Taylor’s Larry never imagined that Joan would not be with him in the great beyond.
If you’re wondering why Joan and Larry arrive at the Junction looking like Elizabeth Olsen and Miles Teller, it’s because in this world, you come back to the happiest version of yourself. That’s why, explains Randolph’s AC Anna, there are a lot of 10-year-old boys around and not a lot of teenagers.
Obviously, Joan is troubled and overwhelmed by the choice between her steady rock and that passionate first love with whom she never got the chance to spend her life. If there’s any complaint, it’s that the script takes a little too long to get across the idea that perhaps no man is an option for Joan.
Olsen is playing a kind of mid-century Diane Keaton in her performance, in which she becomes an old soul in a young body. In one scene, he and Larry go into hysterics as they discover the joy of being able to sit up and jump again.
Taylor, meanwhile, is surprisingly great as the obvious underdog – an ego-less performance that goes a long way. Luke emerges a little less as a well-rounded character, perhaps because he is still the same young man who died in the war. But Turner is committed and enjoyable as Robert Redford’s version of Benjamin Braddock. Although he brushes off compliments like mosquitoes and insists that he is “not perfect”, he really doesn’t believe that Joan won’t ultimately choose him.
And then there is that painful choice. Is it romantic? Is it disappointing? Is its idea of what human life means extremely limited? Yes? It’s committed, it’s clever, the comfortable simplicity is also quite satisfying – an implicit, crowd-pleaser that doesn’t last an eternity.
“Eternity,” released by A24 in theaters Wednesday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for “sexual content and some strong language.” Running time: 112 minutes. Three out of four stars.
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