Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, and Callum Turner take their romantic comedic prowess to a new level in the A24 film Eternity, a heart-wrenching tale of a woman who, in the afterlife, must decide between spending eternity with her longtime husband or her first love, who died young and waited decades for her. At the Los Angeles premiere on Wednesday, Teller joked about the film's potential to spark arguments among couples: "You would choose me in eternity, right? Oh right, right, of course."
The film, which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival and has screened at festivals this fall, has observed that "people branch off and you can tell that they're asking these questions that we're all going to face. It makes people, in a wonderful way, think about loved ones or friends or family members, anyone who has passed away that they hope to be reunited with. I think dying is a tough thing to talk about, even though everybody thinks about it, and this way you get to watch a really entertaining version of it for two hours," Teller shared with The Hollywood Reporter.
Teller, who plays Olsen's husband of 65 years who returns to his younger body in the afterlife, was drawn to the story as a "really tender-hearted piece." It also marks his return to the rom-com genre after early films in his career like That Awkward Moment (2014) and Two Night Stand (2014), as well as the more rom-dram leaning The Spectacular Now (2013). "I was happy that I was given the opportunity again," he said. "I think most actors are pretty multifaceted—they just get put in a lane maybe early on, and I just have a wide range of interests, so I feel lucky that I've been able to kind of weave in and out. But this movie is just kind of life-affirming and to me those are the best projects."
Olsen, on the other hand, is tackling her first rom-com with Eternity. As she joked, "If I were to do a romantic comedy, it made the most sense for me to do one as a 90-year-old," like Teller, her character dies in old age and appears as her younger self in the afterlife. "That was a really amazing opportunity to get to have," she said. She pointed to films like Shirley MacLaine's The Apartment and Irma la Douce as inspirations and added after her first rom-com experience, "The truth is I want to do all of the genres. I really want to do all of them. I'm enjoying that this was a part of it. I'd love to do [another] one as like a 65-year-old."
Eternity, directed by David Freyne and co-starring Da'Vine Joy Randolph and John Early, hits theaters on November 26.
