Plot
Larry and Joan, an argumentative elderly couple married for 65 years, attend a family gender reveal party. Joan has terminal cancer, which the couple keeps secret. At the party, Larry is shown a picture of Luke, Joan's first husband who died in the Korean War. Larry suddenly chokes while eating a pretzel and dies.
Larry awakens on a train as a young man, soon discovering he is in the afterlife. He meets Anna, his assigned Afterlife Coordinator (AC), who informs Larry he must decide where he wants to spend his Eternity. Anna informs that each Eternity has a unique theme, but that all decisions are final and attempting to escape will result in banishment to the Void, a place of infinite darkness. Larry decides to await the arrival of Joan in a space called the Junction.
Soon afterwards, Joan succumbs to her cancer and arrives at the Junction as a young woman. She is reunited with Larry, but her AC Ryan also arrives with Luke, who reveals he has been waiting for her at the Junction for 67 years. Prompted to make a decision with whom to spend her Eternity, an overwhelmed Joan confides in her recently deceased friend Karen, while Larry leans on Anna for help.
Because of her special circumstance, Joan is granted permission to sample two Eternities—one with Larry and one with Luke—before making her final decision. She attends a mountain wilderness-inspired Eternity with Luke, where they visit the Archives, a building in each Eternity that shows moments from an individual's life. Luke and Joan watch their love story, but Luke becomes upset when he sees that Larry proposed to Joan at the dock where he said goodbye to Joan before heading off to war. Joan then visits a beach-inspired Eternity with Larry, who refuses to enter the Archives to revisit their life together.
Despite happy dates with both husbands, Joan struggles with her decision. Luke shows her a letter Larry had written before her death in which he had chosen an Eternity and would wait for her there, which she unfavorably compares to Luke's 67 years of devotion waiting in the Junction. She discusses her decision with Karen while visiting information booths about different Eternities; meanwhile, Luke and Larry bond. Luke informs Larry that souls revert to the physical age at which they were happiest; Luke when discussing starting a family with Joan, and Larry when Joan was pregnant with their second child.
Unable to choose, Joan opts to spend her Eternity with Karen. However, Larry realizes Joan has been wearing her hair long, something she only did during her first marriage, believing this means it was when she was happiest. Wanting her to be happy, Larry tells Joan to spend Eternity with Luke. As Larry ponders what he will do next, Anna tells him that she never picked an Eternity because she found herself happiest helping others. Over the years the passion decreased, but she thanks Larry for helping her to renew it.
Joan and Luke happily begin their Eternity in the mountains, yet as time passes, Joan becomes dissatisfied and frequents the Archives in order to relive her memories with Larry. She realizes all the little moments of life with Larry mattered more to her than the young love free of hardship and loss that she had with Luke. When Joan decides that she wants to spend Eternity with Larry instead, Luke attempts to dissuade her, ultimately fearing she will be lost to the Void. They find closure and together mourn the lives they never had. Luke agrees to act as a decoy, allowing Joan to pass through the Archives to exit that Eternity. She is confronted by troubled memories of her own past before finding her way back to the Junction.
In the Junction, Joan enlists the help of Ryan and Anna to hide her and find Larry. They discover that Larry remained at the Junction, taking up a bartending job (previously Luke's) and forgoing an eternity without Joan. Larry and Joan reunite and enter a discontinued Eternity reminiscent of their earthly life.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 77% of 184 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Marrying a clever spin on the afterlife with an infectious sweet streak, Eternity is a spiritual successor to classic romantic screwball comedies that's worthy of their company." [17] On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film holds a score of 58/100 based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. [18] Audiences surveyed by PostTrak gave the film an 84% overall positive score, with 54% saying they would "definitely recommend" it. [19]
Pete Hammond of Deadline praised the film's "bright and fun production design" and "sparkling colorful cinematography", but felt it could use "a little tightening", writing that the middle section "feels like an eternity." [20]
