I sat down with David Freyne, the director of A24’s Eternity, starring Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, and Callum Turner.
Synopsis:
In an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, Joan (Olsen) is faced with the impossible choice between the man she spent her life with (Teller) and her first love (Turner), who died young and has waited decades for her to arrive.
The film is about the disastrous effects of idyllic memory on reality.
Freyne shared that for Olsen’s character:
“It's not just a choice between these men, it's a choice between two different versions of herself.”
With Teller, whom she’s been married to for 65 years, she’s curmudgeonly. There’s a comfort there, which allows her to relax into being a bit persnickety.
But with Turner, Freyne explained:
“It's almost like you can see 60 years leave her face… she turns into kind of this younger nervous butterfly person with Callum.”
Freyne continued:
“The film is weirdly her realizing that actually, [her relationship with Turner] wasn’t so idyllic, it wasn’t so beautiful. And actually, maybe the reality was much more beautiful than the weird kind of amber that she’s frozen it in.”
Despite Eternity centering on all this “extra” time we get in the afterlife, it’s really a meditation on coming to terms with the fact that life ends.
And although those that have died in the film can choose from a dreamy variety of afterlives (Beach World, Man-Free World, Paris World, etc.), we slowly realize that these can all become personal hells.
In Eternity, we see that paradise isn’t living a fantasy, it’s accepting time’s limits and embracing the life you’ve lived.
Here’s the trailer:
Eternity is currently in theaters.
