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‘ETERNITY’ Wastes the Afterlife in Rom-Com Purgatory

Joan (Elizabeth Olsen) just died. Fortunately for her, death comes with options. She gets to choose between a series of curated afterlives, each designed so she can spend a hand-selected eternity with the person she loved most. Unfortunately, she was married twice: first to Luke (Callum Turner), a dedicated soldier who died in war, and later to Larry (Miles Teller), with whom she shared 65 years and raised a family. So now Joan must decide between the smoldering heat of her first love and the cozy domesticity of her second. With A24 distributing and a respectable cast assembled, one might assume the existential rom-com Eternity would sidestep the genre’s tired clichés and deliver something meaningful. Instead, it sinks comfortably into the wreckage of the rom-com’s worst instincts, like a codependent relationship that’s too lazy to risk anything new. Though just mildly amusing and just mildly clever, Eternity is unmistakably formulaic, centering its drama on that tried and true love triangle truism: women be indecisive. Read More

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Bittersweet Symphony ‘THE HOLDOVERS’ Waxes on Holiday Loneliness 

Winter is coming. At an Exeter-esque New England prep school circa the 1970s, students ready themselves for Christmas break. All but a handful of Barton students anticipate time with family, away from the academic demands of their coursework and the prying eyes of their hawkish professors. A small collection of eponymous “holdovers” are left behind, stranded at the snow-bound school for various reasons, forsaken under the tyrannical cross-eye of Dr. Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti). Amongst the abandoned is resident reprobate Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), a whip-smart smart-ass who’s a bit of a loner and has a troubled home life. There to ensure the collection is fed during their holiday stint is cafeteria manager Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who recently lost her son, a recent Barton graduate, in the Vietnam War. Director Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways, Nebraska), working from a fantastic script from long-time TV writer David Hemingson, finds every avenue to make these characters collide, collude, and refract one another in a dizzying display of heart, humanity, and humor. Read More