Eternity (dir. David Freyne)

by Jack Martin | Dec 4, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 114 mins

UK Distributor: A24

UK Release Date: 5 December 2025

WHO’S IN ETERNITY?

Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, John Early, Olga Merediz, Barry Primus, Betty Buckley

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

David Freyne (director, writer), Patrick Cunnane (writer), Tim White and Trevor White (producers), David Fleming (composer), Ruairí O’Brien (cinematographer), Joe Sawyer (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A love triangle in the afterlife…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON ETERNITY?

Just as much as the likes of Hereditary and Saint Maud were examples of artisan horror, and to the extent that Everything Everywhere All at Once, Ex Machina and Love Lies Bleeding all stretched beyond their own respective categories, director and co-writer David Freyne’s Eternity is, like its fellow A24 movies, an “elevated” form of typical genre conventions. In this case, though, Eternity elevates not one but two classic types of film: the screwball romantic-comedy, and the high-concept fantasy concerning what goes on in the afterlife – the results of which are, well, interesting to say the least.

On the one hand, there’s a charming level of creativity with its premise that Freyne, co-writer Patrick Cunnane and their central cast are all capable of running with to a point where you’d be fine with just spending the entire movie in this imaginative world. But on the other, it becomes clear fairly early on that there’s only so much mileage that the filmmakers can get out of their concept, which is a little odd given how the possibilities could go on for, well, eternity.

The film begins as elderly married couple Larry (Barry Primus) and Joan (Betty Buckley) are bickering on their way to a family event, which thanks to a lodged pretzel ends tragically for Larry. He suddenly wakes up on a train that pulls into a strange terminal filled with other recently departed souls, all of whom along with Larry himself (now played by Miles Teller) have adopted youthful looks from when they were happiest in life. Larry’s soon paired with afterlife coordinator Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph) who informs him that not only is he now dead but that he has a week to decide how he wants to spend eternity, with much of the terminal made up of advertisements and exhibition stalls promoting various possible paradises such as “Workout World” or “Museum World” or “No-Men World” (the latter of which is, of course, at full capacity).

However, just as soon as Larry has pinpointed where he wants to go, he suddenly comes across Joan (now played by Elizabeth Olsen) who herself has recently succumbed to cancer, and decides that his eternity is wherever hers ends up being. That’s a little easier said than done, though, because Joan also encounters none other than her first husband Luke (Callum Turner) who died in combat years before she settled down with Larry, and has spent the last sixty-odd years remaining in the terminal working as a bartender whilst waiting for Joan to arrive. With both men vying for one woman’s affection, the situation quickly descends into chaos as Joan is forced to come to a decision about who she wants to be with for the rest of time.

For a film that sounds as though it should be fairly straightforward with its concept and world-building, Eternity is surprisingly complicated. This afterlife comes with quite a lot of rules and regulations that everyone must adhere to, including the notion that you can only choose one form of afterlife or else risk being thrown into a pitch-black void of nothingness, especially if you somehow manage to escape (which turns out to be surprisingly easy for a lot of reluctant eternals). This doesn’t just weigh down the whimsy of it all but also barely disguises how Freyne and Cunnane’s script is oddly all over the place, filled with convolutions and other little things that don’t really make much sense – for example, why do people who are already dead feel the need to sleep in nice hotel rooms? And if there’s no concept of time then how come everyone seems to know when a week has come and gone? – which I know is silly to nitpick about, particularly in what is very much a fantasy movie, but it’s nonetheless hard to ignore these leaps in logic, no matter which plane of reality we may be on.

Luckily, Eternity benefits enormously from a creative sense of humour, as director Freyne is having a lot of fun spotlighting some of the infinite afterlives on display, the majority of them making for fun background gags that compel you to rewatch the film just to spot all the ones you may have originally missed. The worlds that we do get to visit, including one that’s just an overcrowded beach with sunburnt dwellers as far as the eye can see, have their own little quirks such as each one containing a museum of memories where exhibits come to life and show people’s past memories, while the terminal itself – which itself appears to be stuck in time with an aesthetic that screams “60s retro-futuristic” – is a neat bit of production design that makes it interesting enough to look at.

Slightly more endearing is the farcical love triangle at its centre, which is where the writers really lean into full-on romantic comedy and where the actors lend a heavy screwball energy to characters that seem to have fallen straight out of a Frank Capra movie. Sometimes the comedic elements can be a bit irritating, particularly the inclusion of Randolph and John Early as their coordinators who mainly exist to fill the “sassy best friend” archetype and even then are often relegated to reaction shots, but the romance is sweet as the main trio share endearing chemistry as they weigh some difficult and ultimately meaningful choices that will literally define them for all eternity.

In the end, Eternity is a bit of a mixed experiment. Fascinating in concept but decisively less so in execution, though not so much that you regret ever seeing it, this is an endearing tribute to both screwball rom-coms and imaginative afterlife fantasies where the elevated nature, unlike most other A24 movies, is what hinders its ultimate potential.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Eternity is an imaginative but ultimately flawed ode to the classic screwball romantic-comedy with amusing afterlife fantasy thrown into the mix, though while the creativity and cast’s chemistry makes it fun enough to watch, the frustrating lack of logic in a needlessly complicated script leaves it something you wouldn’t necessarily want to spend your own eternity with.