"Eternity" and "It Ends"

Here are two smaller, existential, high concept films that I want to recommend before they slip too far back in my memory.

The more cheerful, life affirming one is a movie about the afterlife.  Directed by David Freyne, and co-written by Freyne and Pat Cunnane, "Eternity" follows an elderly couple who have been married for sixty-five years when they die, and learn that they have to choose where to spend their eternal rest.  The deceased have a variety of different afterlives available to them, and help from "Afterlife Coordinators" like Anna (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) and Ryan (John Early) during the transition.  However, in the case of Joan (Elizabeth Olsen), she not only has to choose an afterlife, but who to spend it with - the man she was married to for decades, Larry (Miles Teller), or her first husband Luke (Callum Turner), who died young as a soldier.  

"Eternity" presents a vision of the afterlife that's a lot of fun.  The newly dead arrive in what looks like a 1960s conventional hall, full of salespeople trying to hawk different afterlives, ranging from eternity at the beach, to eternity with no men allowed, to eternity in Weimar German without the Nazis.  Joan and Larry are returned to the age they felt the most comfortable, which is when they were in their thirties, but their neighbor Karen (Olga Merediz) stays elderly.  We also learn that each eternity has an archive for its inhabitants to review old memories of their lives, which also comes in handy for exposition.  The amount of fun little details in the set designs, despite a limited budget, made me think of "The Good Place," though there's more similarity plotwise to something like "Defending Your Life." 

There's a lightness and optimism to "Eternity" which is a little old fashioned and very appealing.  Despite the big concepts, this turns out to be a romantic comedy at heart, where we spend most of the movie with Luke, trying to figure out how to make Joan fall in love with him again.  The performances are warm and winning, with Miles Teller continuing to make the case for himself as a solid cinema everyman, and Elizabeth Olsen being very charming.  "Eternity" hearkens back to much older supernatural films in the tradition of "A Matter of Life and Death" and "A Guy Named Joe," and it easily won me over.  It's currently at the top of my list of films I'd like to watch with older relatives.

Now on to a much less conventional indie film, "It Ends," which starts out as horror and morphs into something quite different.  Four twentysomething friends are in a car together, take a wrong turn, and end up on a road in a wooded area that never seems to end.  What's more alarming is that the foursome never seem to get tired, never need to eat or drink, their phones never run out of power, and the car never runs out of gas.  However, if they stop for too long, people will emerge from the woods to attack the car.  Their only choice is to keep driving.  At least, that's what they think is their only choice at first.  James (Phinehas Yoon), Day (Akira Jackson), Fisher (Noah Toth) and Mitchell (Tyler) all ultimately decide to deal with their extraordinary circumstances in different ways.  

"It Ends" is one of those films where the central premise is clearly meant to be treated as a metaphor for something profound, and the audience will take away as much meaning as they bring to it.  From a production standpoint, "It Ends" is a minimal, shoestring piece of work with very green actors and not the best technical bona fides. However, it's got some great ideas, and I like the way that it starts in such familiar genre territory and gradually subverts itself more and more.  It's also very good at capturing the mood of long car trips, and the dynamics of a friend group with a lot of history.  I think it'll resonate the most with viewers in their twenties who are at the same state of life as the protagonists, trying to figure out their path through life, and which relationships are worth fighting for as people in their lives start drifting away.  I had a great time with it.

"It Ends" also has the distinction of being one of the first films distributed by Letterboxd, which is starting to pick up smaller titles in danger of falling through the cracks.  I look forward to their future offerings with interest.

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