By George & Josh Bate
With just three films under his belt, Ari Aster has established himself as one of modern cinema’s most bold and challenging directors. His feature directorial debut Hereditary remains one of the more unsettling horror movies of recent years, while his follow-up Midsommar brought folk horror to the 21st century with understated terror and profound success. Aster then delivered Beau is Afraid, an ambitious, fascinating, exhausting, and nerve-racking odyssey that proved divisive with audiences and critics alike. Eddington, his latest effort, sees the acclaimed filmmaker depart from the horror genre more than ever with a darkly satirical neo-Western that shines a scathing, sprawling, and not too subtle light on all sides of modern America.
Eddington takes place in May 2020, just months after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Joaquin Phoenix plays Joe Cross, the sheriff of the fictional New Mexico city of Eddington, who decides to run for mayor against the incumbent Ted Garcia, played by Pedro Pascal, after facing criticism for refusing to wear a mask. The movie weaves together a variety of characters in Eddington, including Cross’ conspiracy theory-hooked wife Louise (Emma Stone), Louise’s mother (Deirdre O’Connell), two officers serving under Cross (Luke Grimes and Micheal Ward), Mayor Garcia’s son Eric (Matt Gomez Hidaka), an infatuated and politically aloof young adult (Cameron Mann), and more.
Aster follows Beau is Afraid, his most unconventional effort to date, with a film that, despite some off-kilter elements, is his most approachable. The filmmaker crafts a contemporary period piece (a statement that seems like a contradiction) in telling a story about a very specific time in very recent American history – the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, right around the death of George Floyd. Aster transports viewers back to this confusing, scary time in a way another filmmaker may go to great lengths to provide a snapshot into slavery, Nazi Germany concentration camps, or any number of notable historical events. The difference here is that Aster constructs a historical drama with incredible recency, such that the audience relives the sheer craziness of this simply unbelievable point in American history.
Populating his film with all sorts of timely social media posts, pointed references, news reports, and disagreements, Aster creates a viewing experience that, while admirably immersive in taking viewers back to this time in recent history, feels tonally misguided and even offensive at times. Far more than any of Aster’s previous films, Eddington plays like a comedy, or a satire to be more specific. In doing so, the filmmaker boldly pokes fun at everything and anything he can get his hands on, although this comes at the expense of sensitivity toward the pandemic. While there are undoubtedly hilarious and too-wild-to-be-true moments from the pandemic era (remember that priest baptizing a baby with a water gun?), this period was also defined by great death and tragedy, things Aster glosses over through his emphasis on humor. One could argue that Aster’s somewhat unfeeling approach toward the pandemic and its less comedic consequences mirrors the rather callous way in which many Americans dealt with the pandemic, although the absence of sustained seriousness certainly elicits discomfort and borders on offensive.
More generally, offense, to some degree, will likely result from Eddington, something Aster is clearly going for. The movie leaves no stone unturned when it comes to criticizing just about every kind of American, resulting in a rather straightforward and certainly unsubtle message that there are bad people on both sides and, more cynically put, everyone is horrible in their own way. Aster takes jabs at the left for being performative and disingenuous in their protests against racial injustice, while also insulting the right for being uncaring and narrow-minded in their neglect of globally relevant issues. It is likely that any American viewing the film will see something they believe in or identify with critiqued here, making Eddington not only provocative emotionally but cognitively. Despite lacking in thematic complexity, the film intriguingly invites (or, essentially forces) the audience to turn inward and see themselves in some part or character or moment of the story that comes with negative connotation. Through its sprawling criticisms of different kinds of Americans, the film features some absolutely hilarious moments and one-liners that, unlike the pandemic-related levity, feel earned and work so well. In a Q&A after the film, Ari Aster labeled Eddington as “hopeful,” but, for us, that couldn’t be further from the lasting sentiment. At its heart, this is a deeply critical and disturbingly relevant movie that, like the best period pieces, shows that history endures and that we are doomed to repeat our mistakes if we continually fail to learn from them.
In addition to being a satirical period piece, Eddington is also a neo-Western, a genre that it embraces more emphatically in its second half. The aforementioned admittedly simple core message is delivered fairly comprehensively in the film’s first half, which gives way to a more narrative-driven second half following a shocking plot twist. The resultant film borrows heavily from the Coen Brothers’ Fargo and No Country for Old Men in following a character (Joaquin Phoenix’s Sheriff Joe Cross), whose one bad decision leads to a cascade of negative and unexpected consequences. From a storytelling perspective, Eddington becomes far more interesting from this point onward as it balances the enlarged presence of narrative while maintaining a scathing throughline of satire. After increasingly growing more heightened and less relatable due to its shift in narrative, the movie eventually converges on an ending one would never expect from an Ari Aster film, yet an ending that is all too fitting for a movie about America. The bookends of the movie, meanwhile, convey a grander message about the growing and more devastating crisis we turn a blind eye to due to the immediacy of more proximal conflicts.
While the film’s messaging is laid out from early on with little restraint, its actual story and character arcs develop in unexpected ways by the end of the movie and are anchored by a strong lead performance from Joaquin Phoenix. The Academy Award winning actor showcases his propensity for comedy here as a more narrow-minded, somewhat bumbling sheriff. Despite sporting an impressive ensemble, Phoenix is firmly the lead, engineering a character that captivates even as he takes stances, makes comments, and does things rendering him a fairly dislikable man. In an odd parallel to his turn in Joker, Phoenix also incorporates his physicality in interesting ways to convey Sheriff Cross’ meekness, impulsivity, and panic.
Fitting to the film’s message that everyone is pretty deplorable in their own way, Eddington’s cast is rounded out by characters with varying moral deficiencies. Pedro Pascal plays the incumbent mayor of Eddington, a man who does all the right things when public facing but only seems to hold his beliefs to preserve his glistening image, rather than actual conviction. Pascal is seemingly everywhere now, featuring in a whopping three movies this summer (with Celine Song’s romantic dramedy Materialists arriving in June and his MCU debut The Fantastic Four: First Steps landing just a week after Eddington’s release). Comparatively, Pascal isn’t given as much to do as Phoenix, but excels with the material he is provided in developing a more duplicitous character that poses challenging questions about the audience’s moral compass.
Another Academy Award winner, Emma Stone, features in the cast, although her arc remains the most uninteresting element of an otherwise fascinating film. Stone plays Sheriff Cross’ wife, a woman named Louise with a penchant for unusual art and a depression linked to an unknown trauma from the past. Through Louise, Eddington loops in another A-list actor in Austin Butler. The Academy Award nominee plays Vernon Jefferson Peak, an enigmatic social media personality (and possible cult leader), who has captivated Louise with his rantings and philosophies about the state of the world. Although it is clear what Aster is trying to say through Louise and Vernon, their inclusion proves far less interesting than everything going on with Phoenix, Pascal, and the host of other side characters. This is no fault of Stone or Butler’s performances, but, rather, an example of Aster infusing the film with one or two too many elements.
VERDICT: 7/10
Acclaimed filmmaker Ari Aster’s latest effort Eddington is a scathing, sprawling, and not too subtle critique of modern America. The director’s more approachable and humorous movie to date, Eddington serves as a captivating and immersive contemporary period piece (which sounds like a contradiction) in carefully and critically examining the COVID-19 pandemic, the death of George Floyd, and the events of summer 2020. Although somewhat unfeeling and overly comedic in its portrayal of COVID-19, the film disturbingly mirrors the American public’s approach to the pandemic and, in turn, makes for uncomfortable viewing. The discomfort doesn’t stop there as Aster admirably takes aim at every kind of American in a damning and hilarious examination of the American people, converging on a simple, yet striking message, that both sides of the political aisle are horrible in their own unique ways. A midway plot twist sees Aster move this commentary more to the backseat in favor of a more gripping and narrative-focused film inspired by Fargo and No Country for Old Men. Joaquin Phoenix anchors the film with a strong performance that leans into the actor’s comedic chops and physicality and results in a captivating, albeit fairly dislikable, lead. Supporting performances from Pedro Pascal, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Luke Grimes, and Cameron Mann each perfectly encapsulate different aspects of Aster’s message, although the inclusion of Emma Stone and Austin Butler’s characters prove to be the least interesting elements of an otherwise fascinating movie. With his fourth feature film now under his belt, Ari Aster demonstrates the broadness of his writing and directing capacities as he makes a film unlike anything he has done before and, more commendably, anything cinema has seen before. Eddington may not be the most thematically complex or subtle fare, but it is undoubtedly provocative, engrossing, thought-provoking, humorous, and, ultimately, relevant.