- The ending of the movie Eternity includes some very fun twists and turns, including the worst of rivals become besties.
- Joan ultimately risks it all to pick the eternity that's right for her.
- The movie gets a "perfect" ending. Read on for more.
Eternity imagines an afterlife wherein people who pass away end up on a train ride to a "junction," a kind of purgatory with ample accommodations for those who recently died. There is also a massive exhibition hall with different "eternities" advertising in order to attract souls to spend their afterlife there. There's "Yacht World," "Paris in the 1960s," "Beach World," "Man-Free World" (already at capacity), and so many more. But for Joan Cutlet (Elizabeth Olsen) the real problem isn't choosing where to spend her eternity. It's whom she wants to spend it with.
Joan has to choose between her dreamboat of a first husband Luke (Callum Turner) who died in war and has been biding his time and waiting for her in the junction for 67 years, and her loyal husband Larry (Miles Teller) with whom she built a life and family in the span of 65 years. Oh, what a burden! To be forced to choose which charming, hot guy to spend forever with! Kidding aside, it is a huge decision that she doesn't take lightly.
This film certainly has quite a few twists and turns, but ultimately sticks the landing with a heartwarming conclusion that just feels so right. Plot holes be damned. There's definitely no such thing as a perfect ending, but I'd have to say Eternity comes very close. Here's everything that went down in the ending of Eternity.
Joan chooses herself.
After using her "special visa" to visit two different eternities, one for each of her husbands, Joan's seven days at the junction are up. She has to make a decision and choose with whom to spend her afterlife with. She spends the night before with her best friend (who'd also passed away) Karen (Olga Merediz), discussing her options while drinking the night away. Meanwhile, her husbands also develop a brotherly bond drinking their nerves away at the bar where Luke works.
The next day, though terribly hungover, one thing that Karen had said stuck with Joan. Maybe it's time for all of them to have a fresh start? A clean slate? So she tells her husbands (and their Afterlife Coordinators/ACs) that she chooses no one. She'll spend eternity with her best friend Karen in Paris in the 1960s. This, of course, breaks not just the men's hearts but her own as well.
Larry makes the ultimate sacrifice.
Larry and Luke process Joan's decision together. They talk things out, when Larry realizes something. Just as Joan's boarding the train with Karen, Larry chases her all the way to the platform. He catches her with enough time to speak before the train takes off. At first, Joan suspects that he's there to try and convince her to choose him. But, in fact, he's there to tell her to do the opposite. He's come to the realization that, because all people in eternity appear in the age or state that they were in when they were happiest, it's clear that Joan was at her happiest with Luke. She wore her long hair long in the afterlife, which she never did in all the time she and Larry were married.
Larry tells Joan that choosing her happiness, and choosing Luke is the right thing to do.He says that he already knows what to do for his own eternity. "Knowing you're happy makes me happy," he says, and they embrace.
Joan explores everything that could have been with Luke.
Joan goes off to spend her eternity with Luke in Mountain World. Their first days there are blissful. They settle into a cozy log cabin in the mountains, and do all the things they weren't able to do. They go hiking, skiing, and frolicking about in the woods. And, yes, they do sneak in some sexy time. But it becomes clear to Joan that she's not truly enjoying herself. Everyday, she ends up at the same place: the Archives theater. There, in the dark tunnel, she watches all the greatest moments of her life spent with Larry.
Joan comes to the realization that she's made a big mistake. She tells Luke that she shouldn't have chosen this eternity with him. She should have chosen Larry. Luke is, of course, hurt by this and asks her to stay there with him. He tells her what she already knows, which is that leaving your chosen eternity is not allowed and that the police will have to send her to the void (an eternity that is basically black nothingness). But Joan says she's willing to risk everything, that she has to try. (Also a major ouch for Luke, that the love of his life would rather risk vast emptiness than be with him.)
Then Luke makes the ultimate sacrifice.
Joan, determined to leave Mountain World and reunite with Larry, hatches a less-than-perfect plan. She practices brandishing a small knife, to threaten the Archives box office guy Fenwick (Ryan Bell) with in order to get the keys to leave Mountain World via a red door inside the theater. This is, of course, a terrible idea. Luckily, Luke comes in to save the day—proving that he may very well be perfect, though he denies it.
Luke becomes a distraction, acting like an emotional wreck seeking comfort from Fenwick. As he pretends to pour his heart out, Joan takes the keys and sneaks into the Archives. Not long after, Luke joins her to bid her goodbye and good luck. She goes through one of the stages playing out the scene of her and Luke's wedding, and through there enters a red door with the words "NO ENTRY" clearly marked on it.
Joan makes a run for it.
Through that red door is a tunnel, like the one in the Archives theater but different. This looked like the messy backstage. Here, she sees all the bad memories from her life. And as she watches these scenes play out, she runs from police chasing her. She enters a white door she spots in the middle of the tunnel in an attempt to escape, and she ends up exiting through the washer in her and Larry's home basement. Above, she hears their voices in the middle of a big argument.
With police right on her tail, she runs upstairs and sees her older self on her deathbed. Old Joan (Betty Buckley) sees her, too, and utters one word: "Larry." Joan crawls under the bed in desperation, and somehow winds up on the train tracks at the junction. From there, she makes her way back to the main station and goes through the exhibition hall.
The Afterlife Coordinators bend the rules to help Joan.
At the exhibition hall, Joan encounters ACs (frenemies turned lovebirds) Anna (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) and Ryan (John Early). Quickly realizing that she's on the run because she wants to be with Larry, the two hopeless romantics help her stay hidden as the police come through.
Ryan then lays out a plan to help Joan. He says that he can sneak her into one of the discontinued realities (which was teased earlier in the film), where she hopefully will be safe and out of the police's sight. But, of course, she can't go without Larry. As it turns out, Larry didn't choose an eternity. He chose to take over Luke's position as the bartender at the junction. Joan surprises him and shows up to the bar, and she asks him to come with her. Making it clear, of course, that it might be dangerous and they might have to be on the run for the rest of their afterlives. Larry doesn't care and just wants to be with her. He says, "When do we leave?"
Joan and Larry opt for the simple life.
One of the foreshadowings earlier in the movie, where the discontinued realities were shown, was the poster for the simple American life eternity. This, of course, is the one that Joan chooses for herself and Larry, having realized that she liked the way things were when they were alive. To her, the simple life was perfect. The couple walk down the road, arm in arm, and Larry says, "Looks like Oakdale." To this, Joan replies, "It's perfect."
