ETERNITY (USA 2025) **½
Directed by David Freyne
ETERNITY is a 2025 American fantasy romantic comedy film directed by David Freyne, which he co-wrote the film with Pat Cunnane.
The ETERNITY premise has a lot of loopholes. If Joan picks her eternity, are the people in her eternity all forced to spend their eternities as she wishes? What happens to their eternities? That is not really eternity; that is fair for everyone. What about Larry’s children? Are they forced into Larry and Joan’s eternity without their own? Of course, a fantasy film like this one omits all the problems that might arise from such a premise. All this stated, this is actually Joan’s choice of a dream eternity, while her loves Larry and Luke face a nightmare of eternity.
There have been many films about the afterlife, from classics like HEAVEN CAN WAIT, FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE, and the minor masterpiece AFTER LIFE by Hirokazu Koreeda, a film that has been acclaimed as one of the best pieces on the subject. Tackling this subject obviously makes a feel-good film, and ETERNITY succeeds as a female feel-good fantasy. Just imagine that one has the two greatest and most loyal lovers to choose which one to spend ETERNITY with.
After death, everybody gets one week to choose where to spend eternity. The film imagines an afterlife with a very specific rule: once you die, you arrive in a kind of liminal space and have one week to decide where — and with whom — you will spend eternity. For Joan (Elizabeth Olson), Larry (Miles Teller), and Luke (Callum Turner), it's really a question of with whom to spend it. Joan must choose between her first love, who died in a war, and the man she has built her life with.
Larry (Miles Teller) — the man she spent her life with (her later spouse). Luke (Callum Turner) — her first love, who died young in a war and has been waiting in the afterlife.
The afterlife setting is not just “heaven or hell”: souls can pick different destinations (various “eternities”), and the emotional stakes centre around Joan’s decision which relationship (and thus which eternity) she will commit to.
The film leads to its inevitable conclusion with few surprises. One can easily predict which man Joan will choose. The option for the happy ending in which Joan ‘gets away with it’ is also predictable, even though it is impossible to achieve in this scenario.
At best, the film shifts from the whimsical premise to something more serious - the subject of what love really means what sacrifice is. A love relationship is not all happiness, but also hardship and arguments. Though this subject has been examined in many romantic dramas before, it is still dealt with seriousness and emotion.
The three main leads are all excellent, giving credibility in a script that could have offered them more. Turner is indeed the dreamy lover that one would easily pick to send ETERNITY with, while TURNER is the more down-to-earth one. The question is, if you were in Joan’s shoes, who would you pick?
Given what the film is supposed to be, it succeeds as a fantasy romcom for the undemanding viewer,
ETERNITY premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival and opens in theatres this week, Friday, November 26th.
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HAMNET (UK/USA 2025) ****
Directed by Chloé Zhao
Academy Award–winning director Chloé Zhao (NOMADLAND) helms this lush and tender drama about William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his family, as seen through the eyes of his thoughtful wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley). Even though the audience already knows that the male is actually the Bard, the name William Shakespeare is not used till near the end of the film.
Based on the novel by Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet’s main character isn’t The Bard — played here by an impressive Paul Mescal — or even the child who gives the film its name. Hamnet belongs to Agnes (Jessie Buckley), Shakespeare’s thoughtful wife, who bathes the film in her warmth, drama and grief.
This is the story of Agnes and Will. She is a healer, he is a writer. It is also the story of their children: Susanna, their firstborn, and their twins, Judith and Hamnet. It's also the story of their small village, in 16th-century England. More to the point, it's a story of the lives, and especially the deaths, from plague, in their times. The story is told from the viewpoint of Agnes, and therein lies its power.
The narrative follows the courtship of Agnes with all the initial problems as they grow into a family with children. Then follows the husband’s trauma. Agnes allows her husband to travel to London to satisfy his hunger to write, which he succeeds at the expense of the family. The death of their son HAMNET, with his absence, fills Agnes with such grief that it overtakes and almost destroys the whole family. The grief is masterfully played, and the audience can really feel the trauma and torment of Agnes. This leads the film to its climax, and it is also what makes this film so emotional, raw, and unforgettable.
The film is graced with two great performances. One is from Irish actress Jessie Buckley, who scores in her title role of the troubled wife, her exasperation reaching a climax after she experiences the death of her son in her hands. Buckley has been nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress in THE LOST DAUGHTER and has also recently been seen in the comedy WICKED LITTLE LETTERS. The husband, Shakespeare, displayed by the recent rapid rise-to-fame of the actor, also Irish, also nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award in AFTERSUN, and also recently seen in ALL OF US STRANGERS. An excellent pairing here by casting genius Nina Gold. It is these two performances that lift HAMNET to one of the Top 10 Films of the year.
The sets and stage of this film are nothing short of remarkable and stunning. The scene of how a play was staged in those days as in Stratford-on-Avon, where HAMLET was played, is beautifully re-created in all its splendour and authenticity. The audience fills into the stand with hands that can reach out onto the stage. It should be noted that in William Shakespeare’s day, the names Hamlet and Hamnet were interchangeable.
Early scenes of Agnes and William’s courtship are naturalistic, rendered through lush cinematography by 2023 TIFF Variety Artisan Award winner Łukasz Żal (COLD WAR, THE ZONE OF INTEREST).
HAMNET opens at the TIFF Lightbox, Toronto, November 26th.
The film also won the Toronto International Film Festival's most honoured People’s Choice Award. Director Zhao’s NOMADLAND also won the same award back in 2020.
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ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT (UK/USA 2025) ***
Directed by Charlie Shackleton
True crime dramas are intriguing fare as they provide mystery and thrills. True crime documentaries are able to draw an audience into it….as the narrative of the ZODIAC KILLER says, at one point. Netflix has cornered the market with countless true crime dramas, both solved and unsolved. The latest true crime drama is one involving one of the highest profiled serial killed, dubbed the Zodiac Killer. His identity was never discovered, and he was never caught.
The Zodiac Killer is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who murdered five known victims in the San Francisco Bay Area between December 1968 and October 1969. The case has been described as "arguably the most famous unsolved murder case in American history," and has become both a fixture of popular culture and a focus for efforts by amateur detectives.
The Zodiac's known attacks took place in Benicia, Vallejo, unincorporated Napa County, and the City and County of San Francisco proper. He attacked three young couples and a lone male cab driver. Two of these victims survived. The Zodiac coined his name in a series of taunting messages that he mailed to regional newspapers, in which he threatened killing sprees and bombings if they were not printed. He also said that he was collecting his victims as slaves for the afterlife. He included four cryptograms or ciphers in his correspondence; two were decrypted in 1969 and 2020, and two are generally considered to be unsolved. But investigators agree on four confirmed attacks by the Zodiac Killer in California. Five victims were killed during these attacks, and two survived
Against the backdrop of deserted spaces, a filmmaker (Shackleton) explores his abandoned Zodiac Killer documentary, delving into the true crime genre's inner workings at a saturation point. For example, at he start of the doc, he films an open car park space narrating that in the doc, a car would move into the space and he describes the car. He says that the cop driving the car is Lyndon, in what he says would likely be a reenactment in the documentary. He goes on to describe another car that pulls in beside the car, and the audience then sees a man, presumably Shackleton, walking into the empty parking spaces. This is the location where it is presumed cop Lyndon first meets who he thinks is the killer, judging from the memory of a sketch he has pinned at the back of his car's sun visor. The one positive fact about Shackleton is that he, at least, is very familiar with the true crime drama genre, which makes this weird doc all the more compelling. ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT is an interesting novelty piece, and the magic question is whether Shackleton can keep his audience attentive throughout the film’s 92-minute length.
ZODIAC KILLER PROJECT had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 27, 2025, where it won the NEXT Innovator Award. It has a special advance seal preview in Toronto on Thursday, October 8th at the TIFF Lightbox, where director Charlie Shackleton will be present for a Q&A. The film opens on November 21st.
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