‘Eddington’ Movie Review: Ari Aster Spares No One In Sprawling 2020 Western-Thriller
Photo from A24
From Jeremy Kibler
Love it or hate it, an Ari Aster film never strikes a middle-of-the-road reaction. Across his brilliant first three feature films (Hereditary, Midsommar, and Beau Is Afraid), the filmmaker never grapples with the same traumas anxieties, and now finally, COVID-19 is the tumultuous backdrop of his fourth and latest. Eddington might be his most polarizing film, which is apropos as it’s a microcosm of the pandemic shutdown and every opinion on the left, the right, and the undecided. It’s not a period we’re exactly excited to revisit, but by design, it’s enraging and cynical to watch, but also darkly amusing.
If you recall being on the ride called Living in America During 2020, the eponymous (and fictional) small town of Eddington, New Mexico, is about to become a very divisive community during May of that wonderful year. Joaquin Phoenix turns in yet another riveting, complicated performance as Sheriff Joe Cross, who’s asthmatic but against the mask mandate. His morose wife, Louise (Emma Stone), stays at home with her conspiracy-addled mother (a terrific Deirdre O’Connell), who’s come to stay with them, and makes weird dolls she sells on Etsy. When Joe’s dynamic with Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), a progressive, pro-tech incumbent running for re-election, becomes even more strained, he decides to run in the mayoral race (starting with grammatically sloppy slogans on his signs). Sooner or later, as the Black Lives Matter movement begins with the murder of George Floyd and human decency takes a nosedive, Joe’s professional and personal lives converge and spiral.
Eddington is like a piñata of provocative ideas stuffed inside of a powder-keg western-thriller with a Coen Brothers-ish sense of humor. Calling it a sociopolitical satire is only partially true because it doesn’t even feel exaggerated, but writer-director Ari Aster spares no one in his righteous targets. There’s the obvious ignorance of the sheriff and the crazed conspiracy theorists, but also the performative activism of white teenagers protesting racial issues. Even Ted Garcia’s piano-infused campaign ad is hilariously on-target (“We can’t go back. We can only go better.”). The anxious mood Aster creates is greatly helped by Darius Khondji’s grand yet intimate cinematography, as well as Daniel Pemberton and Bobby Krlic’s hauntingly discordant score.
Unlike Aster’s previous films, Eddington takes about a full hour out of its two-and-a-half-hour running time to really find its footing. It is a sprawling, densely packed slice of Americana told from one anti-mask sheriff, while the majority of the supporting characters come and go (Clifton Collins Jr. opens the film and turns up again as a homeless man, an underutilized Emma Stone still shows glimmers of broken humanity as Joe’s wife, and Austin Butler pops up as a charismatic cult leader Vernon Jefferson Peak). Once the film becomes more focused and confident, Aster’s bolder, nightmarish impulses start humming, as simmering tension explodes into startlingly violent chaos.
Eddington doesn’t make us feel any better about the last five years or society in general, but Aster vividly pinpoints that feeling of screaming into the void. He brazenly instigates conversation and debate all over again in a film that is unsuspectingly much funnier than the reality of living in 2020 but still bleak as hell.
Rating: 4/5
Eddington is currently in theaters.
