The End of Eternity (1987)

Film review #711

Director: Andrei Yermash

SYNOPSIS: A group of immortals use their time travel technology to make minor adjustments to the timeline to improve humanity. Thomas Harlan is a technician who aids in this project, and when he is assigned to spend a week in the 482nd century with a woman named Noys, he falls in love with her and attempts to protect her from being erased from the timeline, and in doing so, uncovers a vast conspiracy…

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: The End of Eternity is a 1987 sci-fi film based on the novel of the same name by Isaac Asimov. Having looked at the 1976 Hungarian TV movie adaptation previously, I know that this is quite a difficult story to adapt. The film introduces us to The Eternals, who use time travel to incrementally adjust human history to improve it. Thomas Harlan is one such Eternal, who is assigned to stay with a woman named Noys in the 482nd century, but when he fall sin love with her and learns that an alteration to the timeline will erase her, tries to hide her in one of the hidden centuries, and uncovers the true nature of The Eternals. The whole plot is again quite complex, and requires a fair amount of attention to follow accurately; it’s difficult to place where – and when – different scenes are taking place. In spite of the difficulty of adapting a difficult text, I think it still does a decent job of presenting the story, you just have to pay attention for the two hours runtime.

The film bears the marks of soviet cinema; the scenes have a grand and epic atmosphere to them, and everything is delivered and presented seriously. The set design too has lots of detail and complexity, as it blends science-fiction with classical architecture. A big change in the film is that there is a lot more focus on Harlan’s rebellion against Eternity, rather than the romance and personal journey of the main character. The ending is also changed from Eternity being abolished through Harlan’s actions, to instead show how they continue to operate, and Harlan’s continued attempt to overthrow them. This is a rather standard change you would find in soviet cinema: the presentation of the Eternals as the ruling class, the bourgeoisie (emphasised by their dressing up in 20th century business suits despite being from the far future), and Harlan, the everyday worker, being oppressed by them and dedicating himself to overthrowing them. A change which offers little resolution for the characters or plot, and muddles up the story a little. not being familiar with the novel’s intricacies myself, I can’t really comment on how well it adapts the novel, but as I mentioned, it still has difficulties making the story flow, but that is I think more that the story is just not suited wholly to the structure of a film (which is perfectly okay; books don’t have to be adapted into films).

The End of Eternity bears the hallmarks of a soviet cinema film, utilising impressive production and generated a heavy and significant atmosphere, but doesn’t quite match up to similar films of the time and era. There’s not much room for interpretation in the story to elevate it into something profound, it’s just a good story that’s hampered by the difficulties of making time travel stories accessible and coherent.