GEORGE V MAGAZINE
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After dying, Joan arrives at the Junction — a train station-like middle ground where she can stay temporarily — with other recently deceased. She has seven days to choose an Eternity — a sort of idyllic universe that’s tailored for a specific group of people — in which she’ll live out the rest of her immortal days. She can only choose once, and there are no takebacks or moving between Eternities if she regrets her decision.
Before she can make that choice, though, she needs to decide which of her two husbands she’ll be living with — Larry Cutler (Miles Teller), her second husband who she raised a family with who died a week before her, or Luke (Callum Turner), her first husband who died in the Vietnam War and spent 67 years waiting in the Junction for her to show up.
The stakes are high, and Joan finds herself second-guessing herself every step of the way before risking it all to pursue her happily ever after with the right man.
So how does Eternity end? Here’s everything to know about the movie’s finale and Joan’s difficult choice.
Eternity ends with Joan ultimately deciding to spend the rest of her days with Larry. However, she takes a roundabout journey.
After Joan tells Larry that she’ll be following her longtime friend Karen (Olga Merediz) into an Eternity without either man, hence choosing herself, Larry has a realization: In the Junction, you’re supposed to look like you did at your happiest. Joan’s hair in the Junction is longer than it ever was when they were married — a sign that she was happier with Luke. He chases her down and tells her to choose happiness by going with her first husband.
She agrees, traveling to a mountainous Eternity with her first husband. However, it winds up not being the right decision. While Luke adapts and makes friends, she longs for Larry and revisits memories of him in the Archives, a theater-like space that projects three-dimensional renderings of special moments throughout their lives.
Realizing that she’s miserable, Joan decides to leave her Eternity so she can return to the Junction to start again with Larry. That’s a big risk, though.
If she’s caught by the Eternity Cops, Joan risks spending the rest of time in the Void, a dark pit that’s described as being as close to hell as possible. However, she manages to steal a set of keys to get through a door while being chased. She happens to then run into her Afterlife Coordinator, Ryan (John Early), and Larry’s AC, Anna (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who lead her to Larry.
Reunited, they sneak into a discontinued Eternity, one that is no longer with the times and has thus been “closed.” As the movie ends, the husband and wife walk into their picturesque Eternity together, ready for whatever the future holds.
Where do Joan and Luke stand?
Although Joan did not decide to stay with her first husband, she is still very much enamored with him at the end of the movie.
After realizing how unhappy she was, Luke selflessly provided a distraction to help her escape. Without his aid, it was unlikely that her plan would have worked.
To Joan, her first husband wasn’t the right fit. He insisted that he wasn’t perfect, but she couldn’t see him any other way and missed the normal imperfections from her marriage to Larry.
What Eternity do Joan and Larry choose?
While Joan and Larry end the movie safely hidden away, their final location isn’t clearly stated in the script. However, writer-director David Freyne confirmed to Polygon in December 2025 that they ended up in the discontinued Simple Eternity.
Eagle-eyed viewers may have noticed that the option was teased in a poster earlier in the movie.
“In my mind, that’s what we wanted it to be,” Freyne told the outlet about their final destination. “It was the idea that it’s a world that very much reflects the world they opened the film with, where they lived together.”
While that was the goal, the director was still surprised by how quickly viewers made the realization. For him, exactly where they ended up wasn’t as important as the choice Joan made.
“We very pointedly put [that poster] there, but it was a throwaway. I didn’t want the audience to necessarily pinpoint exactly where they go,” he explained. “What’s most important to the ending is that they’re together, wherever they are — the point is, it’s who you’re with that matters.”
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