Eddington Review
“Somehow feels equally esoteric and pointless [as Beau is Afraid]”
I try very hard never to hold a director accountable for their previous bad movie choices when they get around to making their next movie. Every movie is its own thing, and as far as Ari Aster goes, I’ve already moved on from whatever Beau is Afraid was supposed to be, because his second teaming with Joaquin Phoenix for Eddington at least seems like something more grounded in the real world, and potentially a comedy, at that.
It’s set in the town of Eddington, New Mexico, in May 2020, when the entire world and most of this country were going nuts over the COVID pandemic. Aster’s latest movie is also very deliberately set around the time of George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police and the Black Live Matters protests that erupted around the country. Eddington is no different, as we meet Phoenix’s Sheriff Joe Cross, who is having difficulty adjusting to things like wearing a mask, a mandate made by the town’s mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), who apparently had a relationship with Joe’s wife Louise (Emma Stone) twenty years prior. There’s a lot of stuff that isn’t clear, except that Joe decides to run for mayor against Ted, which just reopens old wounds. Meanwhile, the town’s division over COVID and mask-wearing explodes when the young people in town start protesting George Floyd’s death, and Joe is caught in the middle of it with his deputies, including one played by Micheal Ward (Empire of Light), who happens to be black and may have had a relationship with Sarah (Amélie Hoeferle), one of the protesters.
That’s probably a lot to take in already, but it’s even more so when you realize Aster seems to be trying to make a comedy that satirizes the world during that very specific time period. The problem is that this decision immediately makes his latest film seem dated, and that’s to a period in the country that many people would probably like to forget, not that things are much better now, other than COVID being in control.
An hour into the movie, it literally transitions into being a murder-mystery where Joe is trying to cover up the murder of one of the main characters, and even though I hate this movie, I won’t spoil who is murdered and by whom. Any humor from that point on mysteriously vanishes, as it builds up to what is essentially a bloody shoot ‘em up, which oddly ends up being much better than the first hour of the movie.
The problem with that (besides this movie being over 2 ½ hours for no particular reason) is that there’s so much in that set-up that doesn’t seem necessary, including everything involving Joe’s wife, and her getting involved with Austin Butler’s character, who I could not even begin to tell you 1.) what he does and 2.) what the point of his inclusion was. The last act of the movie also involves an Antifa faction for no particular reason, then the fact that we live in America, and every white filmmaker (including Alex Garland in Civil War) feels the need to make commentary on the country’s race relations. Most of what Garland did in that movie is far more subtle than anything in Eddington, if you can believe that.
It’s blatantly clear that with Eddington, Ari Aster is trying to make his version of a Coen Brothers-esque modern-day Western, with many beats and plot points straight out of Fargo or No Country for Old Men, except that Aster never quite gets the tone to a place where it can be switched on a dime, as he tries to do.
Anyone going to see Aster’s new movie for Pedro Pascal or Emma Stone, or even Austin Butler, might be severely disappointed by how little they actually appear in this movie. Nope, just like Beau is Afraid, this is the Joaquin Phoenix Show all over again. Frankly, I can take or leave Phoenix as an actor, because he just seems to like working with these eccentric filmmakers making deeply esoteric art films that have very little commercial potential or appeal. Eddington follows suit. The movie is being sold as if it’s all about this conflict between the sheriff and mayor of this small town, where everyone knows each other, but that’s literally just surface-level plot for a movie in which Aster hits the viewer over the head with his less-than-subtle commentary on the country. If A24 had any balls, they would have premiered it at Sundance or SXSW rather than in France at Cannes. (Presumably, it wasn’t ready for those earlier festivals.)
Oddly (thankfully?), there is no mention of Trump, though presumably this was made sometime last year during the Presidential election. Maybe Aster didn’t want to date his movie too much, but that’s already nearly impossible, due to Eddington’s unsubtle commentary on American politics, including and especially the ending that seems to go on forever. For a movie that begins like a comedy trying to get laughs, it ends up in the same grim place as the Ari Aster that made Hereditary and Midsommar, clearly a filmmaker who just wants to be a regular inclusion in the annual “Bleak Week.” (Look it up.)
The discourse over Ari Aster’s Eddington shouldn’t be whether he meant to make a comedy or not, but rather… WHO CARES ABOUT ANY OF THIS STUFF? While Beau is Afraid felt like something created by someone making movies under long-term COVID, Eddington just barely benefits from being more grounded in reality and less bizarre. And yet, it still somehow feels equally esoteric and pointless.
Rating: 4.5/10
Eddington opens nationwide on Friday, July 18.