(L to R) Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
‘Eddington’ receives 6 out of 10 stars.
Opening in theaters July 18 is ‘Eddington,’ written and directed by Ari Aster and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Amélie Hoeferle, Clifton Collins Jr., William Belleau, and Austin Butler.
Related Article: Joaquin Phoenix Talks ‘Eddington’ and Working with Director Ari Aster
Initial Thoughts
Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
The fourth feature from writer-director Ari Aster – who previously tackled horror in ‘Hereditary’ and ‘Midsommar,’ and psychological surrealism in ‘Beau is Afraid’ – finds the filmmaker pivoting again, this time to a hybrid of political satire, social commentary, and Western tropes.
As one might imagine from reading that ambitious trio of themes, Aster takes a big swing with ‘Eddington’ – in which he stands up a small New Mexico town for an America reeling from COVID and Trumpism – but doesn’t quite connect. In his attempt to say as much as he can about the current state of the nation, Aster doesn’t manage to really say anything except that the situation is kind of hopeless. Despite its excellent visual package and a sturdy set of performances, ‘Eddington’ never quite finds its groove.
Story and Direction
Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
Eddington, New Mexico is the kind of small town that some folks used to colloquially describe as a “wide place in the road”: with a population of just over 2,300 spread out over a sprawling desert landscape and a downtown that is not that lively even on its best days, Eddington is the kind of place where decent people go just to be left alone and live quietly, but which can also breed insularity and incuriosity.
As ‘Eddington’ opens, it’s 2020 and the town is in the grip of the COVID pandemic: the mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), is on the surface a well-meaning liberal who dutifully enforces mask mandates and is advocating for the construction of a high-tech data center to bring Eddington into the 21st century, while the sheriff, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) pushes back against masking out of a combination of genuine concern for some of his townspeople ( who find it hard to breathe through them, for example) and a festering belligerence toward the kind of governmental authority that he feels verges on overstepping.
So when Sheriff Joe decides he’s had enough and announces his own campaign to unseat Ted, festering tensions in the town – along political, personal, race, and age lines – start to boil over. The town’s younger population, bored and directionless, find their voice in first Black Lives Matter marches and then increasingly incoherent cultural protests (one teen raging over white privilege at the dinner table earns an incredulous “you’re white!” from his exasperated father), while Joe’s more or less incompetent campaign still manages to rattle the slick, unflappable Ted and get more of the town on his side. It doesn’t help matters that Joe’s wife, Louise (Emma Stone) – who once had a dalliance with Ted – is going down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole with her mom Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), with the two of them falling under the spell of an online cult leader named Vernon Jefferson Peak (Austin Butler).
Micheal Ward in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
If that sounds like a lot, it is. And for its first half, ‘Eddington’ plays like the political/social satire that the above sets up, with some characters faring better than others in the empathy stakes and a few sporadically funny moments thrown in. At the same time, if a movie centers around a lot of people talking past each other, it had better be as sharply written as possible, and Aster’s script takes more of a kitchen-sink approach than a focused one, resulting in a certain amount of tedium.
And then ‘Eddington’ takes a shocking turn at the halfway point into much darker territory, with murder and a real conspiracy coming into play, and suddenly the movie cannot even find the right tonal balance to make all this hit as hard as possible. Perhaps Aster is trying to say that the kind of cultural and political polarization that’s been racking this nation for the past decade is funny until it isn’t, but all the film gets across by the time it ends is a kind of bleak, dreary nihilism.
On an aesthetic level, Aster is sure-footed and confident. Eddington (played largely by the wonderfully named New Mexico town Truth Or Consequences) is a character unto itself, full of both beauty and death and photographically evocatively by legendary DP Darius Khondji, while the film’s design, scope, and atmosphere all evoke an America that’s teetering on the edge of profound disaster. But while Aster seems to want to fashion a true American epic out of this material, all he pretty much says is that we’re all stupid enough to fall for anything in the end, and the film’s closing scenes become as inarticulate as the youth protests that rock the once-placid town.
Cast and Performances
(L to R) Emma Stone and Deirdre O’Connell in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
We have been increasingly disenchanted with Joaquin Phoenix’s last few performances, as he seemed to recycle the same inexpressive, psychologically wounded, emotionally stunted man-child in both ‘Joker’ films, ‘Napoleon,’ and Ari Aster’s brutally unwatchable ‘Beau is Afraid.’ But he turns away from those here with his work as Sheriff Joe Cross, a man who respects the traditions of law enforcement and seems to genuinely believe in doing the right thing and taking people at their word – until he doesn’t, and until the strain of what’s happening in Eddington finally breaks him down.
It’s a tribute to Phoenix’s still-considerable skills as an actor that he makes Joe empathetic even for those who might flinch reflexively from the character, and even when Joe plunges into darkness later in the film, Phoenix still manages to pull out moments that show the man’s shattered humanity. It’s the actor’s best work in a while, even if Joe Cross gets stuck in the nexus of the story’s confused themes.
Pedro Pascal utilizes his effortless presence to effectively portray Ted Garcia’s charisma and camera-ready personality, but we don’t get to see enough of what’s under the skin to truly make the mayor come to life. The same goes for a number of others in the film: Emma Stone, Deirdre O’Connell, and William Belleau – as a Native American police officer from the tribal lands next to Eddington who perhaps sees the truth of what’s happening most clearly – are all excellent, but aren’t provided enough real estate to develop their characters. Luke Grimes and Micheal Ward are also striking as Joe’s deputies, who almost act as the good and bad angels on his shoulders, while Austin Butler is frankly wasted in a role that clogs up the plot even more and really doesn’t need to be there.
Final Thoughts
Austin Butler in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
The closing shot of ‘Eddington’ may reflect the growing divide between those who yearn for a sort of mythical “simpler time” and those who want to push the country forward even at the risk of ignoring or sidestepping the possible dangers. The darkness surrounding that last image may also indicate that the two sides are too far apart at this point, and too willing to go to extreme ends to preserve their notion of what our lives, culture, and society should be.
It’s an evocative shot, and if Ari Aster had brought a little more of that thoughtfulness to the rest of ‘Eddington,’ the bulk of the film might be as haunting. But he piles so much into the movie’s 149-minute running time that we can’t help but be reminded of another overstuffed, would-be epic: Damien Chazelle’s ‘Babylon,’ which went to similar lengths but also seemed to lose its way among its own ambitions. ‘Eddington’ has a lot it wants to say – it just doesn’t know how to say it effectively.
“Hindsight is 2020.”
Showtimes & Tickets
In May of 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico. Read the Plot
What is the plot of ‘Eddington’?
In May 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.
Who is in the cast of ‘Eddington’?
- Joaquin Phoenix as Sheriff Joe Cross
- Pedro Pascal as Mayor Ted Garcia
- Emma Stone as Louise Cross
- Austin Butler as Vernon Jefferson Peak
- Luke Grimes as Guy Tooley
- Deirdre O’Connell as Dawn
- Micheal Ward as Michael
- Amélie Hoeferle as Sarah
- Clifton Collins Jr. as Lodge
- William Belleau as Officer Butterfly Jimenez
- Matt Gomez Hidaka as Eric Garcia
- Cameron Mann as Brian
Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Eddington’. Photo: A24.
List of Ari Aster Movies:
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