Elizabeth Olsen Faces Heartache and Hope in Afterlife Romance Eternity

Elizabeth Olsen has found herself drawn to stories of love and loss more than once in recent years. In her newest film, Eternity, she steps into the shoes of Joan, a woman who must make an unthinkable decision after death. While Olsen is no stranger to playing characters wrestling with grief—her turn as Scarlet Witch in WandaVision and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness comes to mind—she says she never set out to repeat herself.

During a conversation in London with her co-star Miles Teller, Olsen reflects,

I also don't even mean to pick projects that are about grief, and I did all of them for different reasons.

She points to her work on His Three Daughters, a 2024 Netflix drama, as an example. That project, she explains, was deeply personal for director Azazel Jacobs, who was preparing himself emotionally for his parents' passing. Olsen says,

With His Three Daughters, it was my friend Azezal Jacobs who directed it. He was kind of trying to prepare himself for his parents' passing, because they were getting quite old, and it was almost like an emotional preparation for him, and I loved getting to work on that with him, with Natasha [Lyonne] and Carrie [Coon]. With this, it felt more about a continued life as opposed to just grief.

Choosing Forever: A Unique Afterlife Dilemma

Eternity offers a fresh take on what happens after we die. In this world, the end isn’t really the end—you get a week to decide where you want to spend your afterlife, but there’s no going back once you choose. For Joan, the choice is anything but simple. She discovers that not only is her husband Larry (played by Miles Teller), her partner of six decades, waiting for her, but so is Luke (Callum Turner), her first love who died young during the Korean War. Suddenly, Joan is forced to confront feelings she thought she’d buried long ago, and the life she might have had with Luke.

The film explores the emotional weight of this decision, as Joan must choose between the love she’s known and the love she lost. Teller shares his thoughts on the film’s central question, saying,

There's such an emphasis on, 'Where do you want to go, which eternity do you want to choose?' And at the end, really, it's about, 'But who do you want to spend it with?'

He adds,

And I think that's beautiful.

Exploring Love, Loss, and Second Chances

Olsen’s portrayal of Joan is layered and heartfelt, capturing the complexity of facing old wounds and new possibilities. The story doesn’t just dwell on sorrow—it’s about what comes after, and the hope that can be found even in the most unexpected places. Eternity asks its characters, and its audience, to consider what truly matters when everything else falls away.

Eternity is now showing in theaters across the United States and will premiere in the United Kingdom on December 5. For those eager for more, there’s a whole slate of upcoming movies to look forward to in 2025 and beyond.