Posts Tagged ‘John Early’

ETERNITY: 3 ½ STARS. “a romcom filtered through a ‘Twilight Zone’ sensibility.”

SYNOPSIS: Set in the afterlife, “Eternity,” a new supernatural rom com starring Miles Teller and Elizabeth Olsen, and now playing in theatres, sees a woman forced to make a decision between her two loves, the man she was married to for 65 years or her first love who died young. “This is the junction,” says afterlife coordinator Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). “Where you choose one place to spend eternity and who to spend it with.”

CAST: Miles Teller, Elizabeth Olsen, Callum Turner, John Early, Olga Merediz, Da’Vine Joy Randolph. Directed by David Freyne.

REVIEW: A romcom filtered through a “Twilight Zone” sensibility, “Eternity” is a whimsical but emotional story of an impossible choice between lost and found love.

When we first meet Joan and Larry, played by Betty Buckley and Barry Primus, they’ve been married for 65 years. When Larry drops dead at a gender reveal party, he enters the afterlife junction, a kitschy 1960s pop art stopover, confused as to how he got there and why he now looks like Miles Teller. “When you get here your form reverts to your happiest self,” says his afterlife coordinator Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). “It can be any age.”

Anna tells him he has one week to figure out where he’d like to spend eternity and with whom. When Joan, now played by Elizabeth Olsen, arrives days later, Larry assumes the two will spend eternity as they spent their lives, together. “Now we can finally have that holiday, but it’s a one and done thing,” he tells her. “They’re very strict on that here. If you want to go to the mountains we can, because the cold won’t kill us now.”

Trouble is, Joan’s first husband Luke (Callum Turner), who died in the war, is also there, and has been waiting for her for decades. “Let me explain exactly what’s happening to my client,” Joan’s afterlife coordinator Ryan (John Early) says, whisking her away. “She clearly has a tough decision to make.”

Placed against a backdrop of the afterlife junction, the colorful gateway to forever, “Eternity” is a metaphysical romance that feels grounded in real emotion. The terrific cast bring both humor and heartache to the high concept story, keeping it light, while diving deep into Joan, Larry and Luke’s relationship.

It’s a tricky balance to juggle humor, some definitely of the slapstick variety, and existential romance, but director David Freyne never fumbles. The mid-section loses the giddy good fun of the opening scenes, relying on flashbacks and soul searching as the characters grapple with what exactly the vow “Til death do us part” means but, even then, the bureaucratic Randolph and Early do the comedic heavy lifting.

“Eternity’s” story of making choices and finding closure tackles heavy topics but never loses its charm and playfulness.

SAVE YOURSELVES!: 3 STARS. “humour, heart and goofy good fun.”  

“Save Yourselves!,” opening in theatres across Canada this weekend, is a whole new genre of movie. A mix of romance and aliens, it is, as far as I can recall, the first apocalyptic rom com.

Young Brooklynites Su and Jack (“Glow’s” Sunita Mani and John Reynolds of “Stranger Things”) are at a crossroads in their lives. Their jobs are unfulfilling and when they bump into an old friend who now runs a company that makes sustainable 3-D printed surfboards out of algae, they realize their lives aren’t contributing to society at large.

To get their heads together and figure out a path forward they go off the grid, disconnect from their devices and spend a week hibernating at a cabin in the mountains. The lack of technology doesn’t bother Jack, but Su has a harder time cutting the iPhone and laptop cord. When she sneaks a listen to a strange voicemail from her mother, she doesn’t register that something really weird is happening in the world outside of their idyllic getaway.

When an alien creature, imagine one of “Star Trek’s” Tribbles, or as jack says, “a tiny, furry footstool,” shows up on the property, they must fight for their lives. Trouble is, as Su says, “We don’t have any skills.”

What they do have, however, is each other.

“Save Yourselves!” is a slight but enjoyable rom com with a quirky premise but some real chemistry between the characters. Su and Jack are what may kindly be called cidiots, people who think anything north of 125th Street is Upstate New York. Unprepared for any crisis outside of a Starbucks pumpkin spice shortage, they are forced to adapt and engage with their new surroundings.

It’s here the movie works best.

Mani and Reynolds bring the funny during the crisis but the humour is always grounded in some sort of situation that recalls the issues in their relationship that pushed them to visit the cabin in the first place. Director/writers Eleanor Wilson and Alex H. Fischer have crafted a story about two hapless folks trying to improve their lives without a clue of how to do it. It has humour and heart and despite a lull in the middle, “Save Yourselves!” is goofy good fun.