ArticleWould you rather a beach or mountain holiday? Live in outer space or in the ocean deep?
“Would You Rather” is, hands-down, my favourite game to play with my kids – it’s loads of fun before it becomes, naturally, deeply stressful. That’s because the 11-year-old must always up the stakes: Would you rather I die, and everyone else live? Or everyone else live, and I die? Huh? Huh?
On the surface, new film Eternity, starring Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, and Callum Turner, is a frothy, nostalgic affair: a love triangle between three gorgeous people set in the afterlife. But beneath the film’s old-world charm lurks the most intense round of “Would You Rather” ever.
I should’ve seen it coming. As the film begins, we find Joan and Luke, an old married couple, bickering about their differing dream holiday destinations on the way to their grandchild’s gender reveal party. Larry loves the beach; Joan prefers the mountains. It’s clear what they would (individually) rather.
But then Larry unexpectedly carks it at the party. He dies, only to wake up in the afterlife as his younger self (Miles Teller) aboard a train heading to the Junction – a cross between a giant hotel, travel expo, and train station – where he has a week to choose where to spend eternity. Heaven, in the film, is your happiest self in either your favourite destination, ideal state, or chosen existence – forever. Naturally, Larry has his heart set on Beach World.
Here’s where “Would You Rather: Eternity Edition” kicks in. Where would you rather spend forever? In the film, there’s an eternity to suit everyone’s taste – to the point that it doesn’t matter whether God exists, one character says, because you’ll be too busy enjoying yourself to notice.
Some of the eternities on offer: how about Capitalist World (“A place where the rich get richer”) or is Smoker’s World (“cancer can’t kill you twice”) more your thing? Maybe Weimar World appeals since, according to its upbeat marketing, it’s “now 100% free of Nazis!” Man-Free World is so popular that it’s completely full, while Museum World sparks buyer’s remorse for one guy, at least (“Museum World is The Worst!”, he fumes).
Herein lies the catch. Once the choice of which eternity is made, there are no takebacks. No visiting loved ones – your friends, family, parents, or kids – who happen to choose a different eternal destination. Not that the film is all that bothered by this, being mostly focused on the love triangle between Joan (who soon follows Larry to the afterlife); Larry, Joan’s second husband; and Luke, her Hollywood-handsome first husband, who died early in their marriage during the US-Korean War, and has been pining away for her in the Junction ever since.
In the film’s insistence that romantic love eclipses all other loving relationships, Eternity seems a throwback to an earlier era. Given the bad press marriage gets these days, to the point that some women are swearing off “I do” altogether, it’s refreshing that (according to the film, at least) “forever love” has life left in it yet.
But Eternity also plays down the possibility that our friends, parents, kids, and anyone beyond the bubble of coupledom might also be our forever loves. There’s a joke about not visiting parents in their respective eternities, since you’d then be stuck with them forever. Also, imagine parting ways with your best friend because she or he happens to settle on a different final destination. And as my friend observed (she came as my plus one to the movie preview), Joan and Larry’s kids seem to take up barely any of the couple’s mental or emotional bandwidth. I’m all for parents being people in their own right, but for these two, their kids seem an afterthought.
Maybe this is nit-picking: the basic romcom is squarely focused on romantic trials and misunderstandings between two or three (usually) unattached people on the way to “happily ever after”. But Eternity is no average romcom, because the forever part can’t help but raise the stakes. The film’s main conflict is whether Joan will choose Larry or Luke. But the surprising moral dilemma of Eternity is like playing “Would You Rather” with an 11-year-old boy who reliably gets carried away: Would you rather spend forever with your spouse – and no one else you love?
That all-or-nothing outcome seems unavoidable, given the film’s emphasis on individual choice. Here’s where Eternity, though, becomes firmly about this earthly life. Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald about what stood out to her about Eternity’s script, star Elizabeth Olsen said, “I loved the idea of the afterlife being bureaucratic and consumerist. It was a nice reflection of what our actual gods are in Western culture.”
The Bible is mysterious about the details of the afterlife, but it’s neither a bureaucracy nor a shopping centre. One thing is clear, though: relationship is the main event. Love is ultimate – not necessarily romantic love but love of neighbour and of God. Happiness isn’t the point, either, but is a grace: the happy outcome of those perfected relationships.
Religious belief may be difficult in a not-so-religious age, but Olsen shrewdly intuits that what still compels our worship are me and my preferences. No wonder there are so many eternities on offer in Eternity: they push individualism to its logical extreme. But if each of us gets our own way forever – all our preferences met, our boxes ticked – everyone is unlikely to end up on the same page. Even less so, the same place. The infinite eternities are played for laughs in the film, but the fact that by the film’s logic, most people would end up in their chosen forevers without their loved ones (with the sole exception of a romantic partner) struck me as a hollow happiness.
Maybe the clue to a more complete joy – which needn’t make us feel happy or good to qualify as such – lies in the question the film itself prompts us to reflect on. Would I rather a love, a life, based on fulfilling my individual feelings and preferences? Or a love, a life, of costly sacrifice?
I know which one sounds more appealing. Even so, I know which one I’d rather.
Dr Justine Toh is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Public Christianity.