Eternal return is a concept, popularized by Nietzsche stating that time is an infinite loop, that every moment is destined to repeat itself exactly the same for eternity -and at least in the Nietzschean view, it is not entirely a negative thing. Supposedly there is some comfort in fate and the reliability of events. It is a theory that is somewhat loosely applied to the film of the same name written and directed by Yaniv Raz, who is compelled by the notion but in a rather roundabout way that still leaves room for mystery and drama to the cosmic dictates of our world. A looseness that doesn’t totally gel with the stringency of the philosophy, though Raz tries hard to make it so -specifically to make a romance that is both destiny and a surprise for a character who, even more unfortunately given these themes, is a clairvoyant.
That is Cassiopeia (because Cassandra would be too obvious but any other name not obvious enough) Pfeffer (Naomi Scott). As a student in New York she fell in love with a classmate Julian (Jay Lycurgo) with whom she was in an unconventional band with (she on harp, he on cello), before the couple arranged to move to London -all of it is set forth for Cass through visions. But then Julian dies in a plane crash before coming, proving her visions false for the first time and breaking her heart. Years later, after having not experienced any more premonitions, Cass happens upon a quaint, old-fashioned cartography shop run by a quirky old-fashioned cartographer Virgil (Kit Harington), and is swept along on a bizarre adventure with him to try sending his mentor and father figure Malcolm (Simon Callow) back in time.
In spite of the presence of clairvoyance, there is not so immediate a supernatural quality to this. Raz douses the movie in a lot of magical realism and airs of profundity, but keeps his action in a space of reality that is nonetheless extravagant simply for its eccentricity. Operating off of an old book called Ouroboros, speculating on the thesis of past, present, and future existing simultaneously in an unending cycle, Virgil extrapolates off of its pseudo-science into creating maps literally to the past -doing this specifically for Malcolm, who is reaching the end of his life and longs to go back to the 1960s -when he was living a bohemian lifestyle in New York as a one-time lover of Allen Ginsberg. Achieving this essentially amounts to charting serendipities -finding places where a symbol or experience unlock a key memory to the time desired, and that at the centre of all of these spots is the place where on a birthday the time travel will happen. A mixture of intellectual curiosity and a need for spontaneity is what ropes Cass into this wild enterprise, though her transition to actually believing in it is more difficult to buy into.
To do so requires a hefty amount of earnest investment in a story that is brazenly whimsical, and often too much so. In spite of her former supernatural gift, Cass is a fairly grounded character, though having to share considerable screen-time with a pair of men who could have stepped out of a Roald Dahl book, and their excursions don’t achieve quite the level of cleverness or humour needed to carry such a sensibility through ordinary contexts -and the results are frequently awkward. There is something a little bit off with aspects of Harington’s performance, who is clearly coded as autistic-savant in his rapid-fire reference points to old literature, obvious evasion tactics, and singular-focused mind at all times. He lives like it is still the nineteenth century, using paper maps for all navigation, wearing a watch, and keeping a home that doesn’t even look like it has central plumbing. We are meant to derive something cute out of this, but it doesn’t relate. Even Malcolm, who supposedly raised Virgil in this way after a traumatic childhood, is a little bit more in touch (really, he feels like what Callow’s character from Four Weddings and a Funeral would have grown into).
Virgil is of course positioned to be Cass’s new love interest in the course of their bizarre odyssey. And it’s not enough that without literal proof, she is taken in by the legitimacy of the exercise (her friend suggests it might be a cult and it is not an unfair assumption). But her attraction to Virgil and his apparent much deeper love for her comes out with little build-up and in a fairly arbitrary manner. He casts a few glances at her that could be interpreted as affectionate and she seems modestly charmed from time to time, but nothing even equating with the flirtatiousness glimpsed in just a few small beats with Julian early on. So when she makes mention of the possibility of them going home together and even more so when he confesses to being in love with her it’s hard to believe -and it can’t be explained away by the movie’s magical realism. It’s not even that Scott and Harington have notably poor chemistry (though Harington, for being Raz’s preferred choice, feels miscast). For her part, Scott does reasonably well with the material. But the love story, so vital to this movie’s ethos, isn’t quite there.
What Raz does do fairly well though is give the movie some vibrant visual character -his visual effects aren’t great, particularly the map backdrop and flights through London. But individual scenes at individual spots have a nice warm romantic sheen to them, and romantic in the heady cosmic sense as much as for the characters. The music by Chanda Dancy gives it this heightened feel too, especially the harp-playing sequence about the midpoint where Scott gets the chance to sing (not much of a song but far better than her number from Aladdin). Several moments capture a magical atmosphere in soft lighting and colour, and of course spaces that intentionally feel out of time -if it weren’t for the occasional smartphone appearance you might think it was set at least a few decades in the past. Raz just about manages to sell the illusion. Until he decides not to.
Raz admits that even as far in as the filmmaking itself he was debating separate endings for the story, something he frames as an organic aspect of the creative process but is in reality a very dangerous approach to making your movie. And when a pair of twists come up near the end it is clear the film is flying by the seat of its pants and struggling to re-frame much of the movie to fit these explanations. It’s not that they don’t or can’t make sense, the picture still feels clear, but Cass’s journey is recalibrated on a dime, the progress of her arc in one sense is undone but in another doesn’t change -and Virgil is framed in an entirely new unflattering light as well that Raz doesn’t seem to understand. The romance ought to seem impossible and yet it is still allowed its inevitability. The actual ending has a genuine romantic flare to it in concept, but the path there is incredibly awkward and murky so that it loses the effect it ought to have.
Through it all, Callow is a burst of joy, an entertaining character who can just about make the outlandish concepts feasible. He is also the narrator, which is a bit of a messy choice -given the omniscience of that role seems entirely disconnected from Malcolm in the story. The function of that writing has a real storybook quality to it, again encompassing this movie’s indomitable whimsy. But Eternal Return really lacks a strength of execution for its lofty thematic ambitions. It deserves to be a better, richer love story but that never materializes beneath the surface. I do appreciate some of its qualities, Raz had some solid ideas, but it is not a movie I can fathom folks returning to eternally. If our lives are unchanging cyclical loops, it’s better not to have to spend much time with it.
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