In an afterlife where souls have one week to decide where to spend eternity, a woman is faced with the impossible choice between the man she spent her life with and her first love, who died young and has waited decades for her to arrive.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ A film by David Freyne, starring Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, John Early, Olga Merediz, Betty Buckley, Barry Primus, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

While driving home from picking up a cake for their grandchild’s gender reveal party, which they’ve agreed to host, longtime married couple Larry (Barry Primus) and Joan (Betty Buckley) bicker about where they should travel next. Larry wants to go to Hawaii because he loves the beach, while Joan prefers the Rocky Mountains. Their conversation turns into a heated argument when Larry starts complaining about the gender reveal party, which he doesn’t think is worth celebrating. Joan doesn’t want to fight and makes Larry promise he’ll at least try to enjoy it.

Before entering their home, Larry insists that Joan should tell their children about her terminal cancer. Joan promises she will, just not today. Inside, their sons Zach (Damon Johnson) and Sam (Danny Mac), along with Sam’s pregnant wife Gia (Christie Burke), are preparing the place for the party with balloons and decorations.

Joan’s granddaughter Charlotte (Lucy Turnbull) brings a box over to Joan. Gia mentions they found a bunch of her old photos in the basement. When Joan pulls out a framed photo from the box, her face lights up. Sam doesn’t recognize the man in the photo and asks who he is. Charlotte assumes it’s a wedding photo of Joan and Larry, but seeing the man in a soldier’s uniform, she asks if grandpa was in the army.

Gia corrects her, explaining that the man was Joan’s stupidly attractive first husband. Curious, Charlotte asks why grandma left him for grandpa. Joan explains that Luke (Callum Turner) was a soldier who died in the war. Sam shows the photo to Larry, who’s just walked into the room munching on mini pretzels, which he often doesn’t chew properly. Suddenly, Larry starts choking on a pretzel and collapses. He dies instantly.

Larry (Miles Teller) wakes up on a train. When it stops at the junction, all the passengers get off. Confused and with no memory of how he got there, Larry exits and follows the crowd along a path to Junction 301. He tries to figure out where he is, but no one answers his questions. They brush him off, saying his AC will be with him shortly without explaining what that means.

Larry feels tired and dozes off. Later, after the crowd has dwindled as their ACs arrive and lead them to their rooms, a woman appears and calls for Larry Cutler. She apologizes for being late, saying she got caught up at another gate. She introduces herself as Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), an Afterlife Coordinator (AC) assigned to Larry. When Anna tells Larry he died, he doesn’t believe her. But when Larry sees his reflection in a mirror, he’s surprised to see he’s now a young man.

Anna explains that when people die and arrive at the junction, they revert to their happiest self, which can be any age. Panicked, Larry insists this can’t be real and he has to get back to his wife. Anna tells him that he is dead and can’t just go wherever he wants. It doesn’t work like that. Larry is now in the junction, a brief transition between life and eternity. She brings him to his room, where he’ll stay until he chooses the right eternity. Then she disappears.

Bored, Larry heads to the bar in the junction for a drink. There, he meets a handsome bartender who mentions that if Larry wants to stay at the junction, he’ll need to get a job. When the bartender learns that Larry’s AC didn’t explain the rules before leaving, he goes over them. The most important rule is there’s no switching eternities once he’s chosen one, not even visiting other eternities. Eternity is forever.

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@pradt

ETERNITY ♾️
A love worth waiting for.
—
A film by David Freyne, starring Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, John Early, Olga Merediz, Betty Buckley, Barry Primus, and Da'Vine Joy Randolph.

If Larry breaks the rule, they can’t technically kill him again, but they’ll put him into the void instead, just blackness for eternity. Larry opens up to the bartender, saying he promised his dying wife he’d always take care of her, and now he can’t because he’s dead. Larry doesn’t recognize or realize that the bartender is actually Luke, Joan’s first husband who died in the war.

Larry wakes up in his room the next morning. He asks Anna why people choose to work here instead of moving on to their eternity. Anna says everyone has their reasons. Some haven’t accepted death yet, and some are waiting for loved ones. But the worst cases are people who still haven’t decided what to do. Each person who arrives at the junction has seven days to choose where they want to spend eternity.

Since Anna can’t tell how close Joan is to dying, it could be tomorrow or seven months from now. Larry decides to write Joan a letter saying he’s going to Beach Land, hoping she’ll follow him there. When he asks Anna to deliver the letter once Joan arrives, Anna refuses, saying it’s against the rules. However, she promises to tell Joan herself.

Meanwhile, Joan finally dies and wakes up on a train. When it stops at Junction 301, she gets off. As Larry descends the escalator to the platform where the train will take him to Beach Land, he spots a young Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) on the opposite escalator, looking confused as she rides up. Larry runs after her and catches up with his wife.

Their brief, happy reunion is interrupted by Ryan (John Early), an Afterlife Coordinator who appears and pulls Joan away from Larry to meet his client, Luke, Joan’s first husband who’s been waiting for her for 67 years.

Written and directed by Irish filmmaker David Freyne from a screenplay he co-wrote with Pat Cunnane, ETERNITY is a fantasy romantic comedy that follows Larry, an elderly man who chokes to death on mini pretzels and arrives at an afterlife junction where he must decide where to spend eternity.

There, he runs into Luke, his wife’s first husband who was killed in the Korean War. Larry doesn’t recognize him at first since he’s only seen Luke in an old photograph.

When his terminally ill wife Joan dies and joins them at the junction, she’s dismayed to learn she must choose between her lifelong husband and her perfectly handsome first husband, the man she never got to share a life with.

The narrative is compelling, driven by a stellar ensemble cast. Miles Teller, Callum Turner, and Elizabeth Olsen each perfectly inhabit their roles. The dialogue is sharp and genuinely funny. Da’Vine Joy Randolph and John Early are excellent in supporting roles, with Randolph stealing every scene she’s in.

ETERNITY premiered at Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2025. The film was theatrically released in the United States 26 on November, by A24.