FILM REVIEW: ETERNITY 2025

SUYASH PACHAURI
4 minutes ago
6 min read

FILM REVIEW: ETERNITY [2025]

One-Liner Review

“A witty, warm afterlife drama that turns love, loss, and second chances into something unforgettable.”

Introduction

If love gave you one final chance to decide who you wanted to spend the rest of your life with, how would you respond? Would you stay faithful to the spouse who supported you through decades of imperfections, disappointments, and sacrifices, or would you go back to the intense love of your youth, kept in memory like a flawless photograph? David Freyne's whimsical afterlife comedy Eternity (2025), which explores the nature of love, nostalgia, regret, and the meaning of eternal bliss through its imaginative premise, revolves on this fundamental subject.

Eternity creates a world that is both emotionally poignant and ridiculously bureaucratic from the outset. Instead of a beautiful heaven of clouds and harps, the afterlife in the movie is a massive mix of a train station, convention center, and train station, teeming with recently deceased souls perusing themed eternities like they are shopping at an expo. The end product is a creative, endearing, and unexpectedly insightful tale that brings joy and lightheartedness to the most difficult human issues.

Eternity, which is anchored by the marvelously nuanced performances of Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen, combines worldbuilding with personal emotional drama, nostalgia with existential contemplation, and pathos with screwball humor. It's a movie that occasionally moves, amuses, consoles, and amuses all in one scene.

Screenplay & Script Sense

One of the best things about the movie is the screenplay written by Patrick Cunnane and David Freyne. It adds emotional nuance, witty humor, and perceptive remarks to a seemingly straightforward love triangle setting.

A Smart Premise Executed with Wit

The script's central conundrum is that Joan must decide between her two husbands, Larry, who has been her companion for 65 years, and Luke, who was her first great love and whom she wants to spend eternity with. It's a sophisticated narrative hook that creates suspense, sympathy, and moral uncertainty right away. The authors deftly introduce several emotional levels while stretching the premise without breaking it: The burden of nostalgia , The comfort of long-term partnership , The dream of what could have been , The anguish of being accepted or rejected , Fear of eternity turning into a trap.

Humor Balanced with Heart

The film does a fantastic job of fusing human sensitivity with screwball humor. A large portion of the humor comes from: Afterlife representatives who behave like rival real estate brokers

Wine World, Weimar World, Museum World, and Man-Free World are examples of absurd afterlife landscapes. The small scale rivalry between Luke and Larry Joan's frustrated responses to being trapped in a cosmic romance triangle. The script maintains its emotional authenticity in spite of its ridiculousness. Every humor is tempered with a moment of tenderness or introspection. In one of the most heartwarming images, Joan and Larry are shown laughing, jumping, and forgetting their decades-long disagreements as they experience what it's like to have young bodies once more.

Themes That Hit Home

The screenplay surprisingly simplifies complex themes: What it endurance or love?

Do we make the decision to choose love every day or only once? Is perfection a myth that keeps us from experiencing true love, or is it a reality? Does eternity make emotions more intense or meaningless? The play makes the case that love is flawed, messy, selfless, and lovely precisely because of it. The idea that imperfect love is genuine love is maybe the most insightful observation made here. Luke is a representation of perfection, which may be alluring but ultimately unreachable and emotionally lacking.

Direction

The picture is made with both whimsy and emotional intelligence thanks to David Freyne's direction. His method combines a grounded closeness that maintains the fantasy tale real with the zany, colorful inventiveness of movies like Defending Your Life and The Good Place.

A Visionary World That Feels Lived-In

Freyne's afterlife is humorous, bureaucratic, and decidedly human rather than godly or divine. He captures: Long corridors that look like airport terminals Combining carnival-style conference booths with icy, brutalist architecture Eternity packages are enthusiastically sold by agents as if they were timeshares. This visual identity makes the afterlife feel less like a religious domain and more like a witty satire of current capitalism.

Balancing Chaos and Calm

Tonal changes are expertly handled by the director. Quiet, reflective moments where characters consider their lives, regrets, and wishes are intercut with scenes of humorous chaos agents fighting, universes collapsing, and Luke and Larry squabbling.

Emotional Precision

Freyne never loses sight of the characters in spite of the lofty idea. The movie is guided by their emotional arcs: Joan facing decades of selflessness, Larry recognizing he was taking his marriage for granted, and Luke holding for an imagined, timeless love Every emotional pulse is guaranteed to reverberate thanks to Freyne's understated yet assured direction.

Acting

The cast is exceptional, with each actor enriching the film’s emotional palette.

Joan, played by Elizabeth Olsen

Olsen gives a stunningly multi-layered performance. Joan is portrayed by her as an elderly soul in a youthful body. Conflicted but resolute Newly empowered but vulnerable It is amazing how she can convey decades of suffering, love, and responsibility with such insignificant motions and facial expressions. She serves as the movie's anchor.

Larry, played by Miles Teller:

Teller delivers one of his most moving performances to date. His Larry is:

Defective Angry Committed Extremely human He presents Larry as a man who realizes the full extent of his love for Joan far too late. A large portion of the film's heart is driven by his emotional fragility.

Luke, played by Callum Turner:

Turner's Luke is purposefully subtle. His blandness becomes a theme: perfection is unattainable, static, and eventually hollow. He is remembered as the "perfect" first love. Turner fits the script's aims with his reserved charm in this part.

John Early and Da'Vine Joy Randolph as AC Agents:

Every scene they appear in is stolen by them. The film is brought to life by their uncontrolled energy, unique line delivery, and humorous timing.

Cinematography

The cinematography is nostalgic and visually lush, drawing heavily from the aesthetics of 1950s and 1960s America.

A Utopian Look Over Dystopian Realities

Cinematographer Cathal Watters juxtaposes:

Beautiful natural landscapes

Dreamlike color palettes

Harsh, artificial indoor lighting

The contrast highlights the film’s central idea: even a beautiful eternity cannot mask human heartbreak and indecision.

Color as Symbolism

Costumes and lighting use color deliberately:

Bright hues symbolize emotional clarity

Muted tones reflect confusion or sorrow

Color changes track shifting relationships

Evoking Nostalgia Without Sentimentality

The cinematography captures nostalgia without leaning into cliché. Scenes feel warm yet honest, highlighting both the beauty and the pain of memory.

Music & Background Score

One particularly noteworthy element that gives the story emotional depth is the music.

Influences from the Past Drawing inspiration from American soundscapes of the mid-1900s, jazz, mellow swing, and warm orchestration The score supports humorous beats, highlights love tension, and amplifies nostalgic scenes. Thematic Depth: Character emotional journeys are reflected in the subtle repetition of melodic motifs. The film's mix of humor and reflection is reflected in the soft, reassuring soundtrack.

Editing

The editing is dynamic, fluid, and well-timed. The pace The movie moves smoothly despite juggling several worlds, timelines, and humorous beats. Comedic scenes that are chopped quickly maintain a dynamic mood. Longer takes give emotional situations time to breathe. World transitions seem seamless and organic. Creative Visual Changes The quirky worldbuilding is enhanced by imaginative transition shots of doors opening to other "eternities" and drapes displaying fictitious sunsets.

Final Verdict

Eternity is a delightful, inventive, and profoundly poignant movie that skillfully combines comedy, emotion, and worldbuilding. The story takes place in the afterlife, but all of the emotional realities are based on human experience. It embraces the messy beauty of imperfect love, strikes a mix between humor and sincerity, and poses important questions without coming across as preachy.

Viewers looking for religious authenticity might not find the movie satisfactory. Instead of being spiritual, its afterlife is secular, stylized, and symbolic. Nonetheless, it is a success as a piece of narrative, creativity, and emotional investigation. One of the most poignant movies of 2025, Eternity is a crowd-pleaser with substance.