Eddington
Ari Aster dials back the clock to a time of Covid-19, Black Lives Matter and the encroachment of energy-consuming data centres.
Showdown of the sheriff: Micheal Ward, Joaquin Phoenix and Luke Grimes
Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
Eddington is the name of a one-horse town in the deep desert of New Mexico, USA. The month is May of 2020 and this nondescript place, with a population of 2,435, looks like it’s on the verge of catastrophic change. There is some confusion as to the legality of not wearing a mask in public, George Floyd has just been murdered by a Minneapolis policeman and the mayor of Eddington, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), is seeking re-election. These are troubling times and with public tensions boiling over, the place is about to explode.
Packing in a crate of additional touchy topics, from mental health and environmental exploitation to gun control, Aris Aster presents his commentary of 21st century America as a state-of-the-nation neo-noir Western. Sporting a stetson and grizzled beard, Joaquin Phoenix channels Jeff Bridges as Joe Cross, the sheriff of this God-forsaken backwater and he cuts a benevolent figure. He is there for the common man and when one elderly citizen is denied entry to the supermarket for not wearing a mask, Joe buys his groceries for him, all paid. Joe Cole is definitely a man of the people, and being asthmatic, he is loathe to wear a mask himself – besides, he is quite sceptical about this whole pandemic thing. In fact, the time seems ripe for Joe to take on the mantel of mayor himself, discrediting the current incumbent as a rapist and paedophile, with Joe’s own wife, Lou (Emma Stone), still suffering the consequences of her abuse. But Joe Cross is also a deeply flawed guy, a cop who manipulates his tenuous position of power…
With its languorous pace and eccentricities, Eddington seems a perfect Joaquin Phoenix vehicle, a lumbering, self-indulgent piece of auteurship from a major director a little too smitten with his own craft. Ari Aster made his name with the character-driven, deeply unnerving Hereditary (2018) and the chilling Midsommar (2019), before overstepping his mark with the over-long, self-important tragicomedy Beau is Afraid (2023), which also starred Joaquin Phoenix. Phoenix goes out of his way to work with individualistic, daring filmmakers who defy convention, and Eddington is one such, taking its own sweet time before clicking into gear.
There’s no denying Aster’s mastery as a filmmaker, but he is as likely to alienate as he is to engage. Much of the action is relayed through the means of social media, via mobile screens, texts and posts, giving the film an immediacy and contemporary feel, as if all this just happened yesterday. But it was so long ago. Back in 2020, the world seemed an unstable and frightening place. God knows what Ari Aster would make of 2025, should he be allowed to put it onto film.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O'Connell, Micheal Ward, Austin Butler, Emma Stone, Amélie Hoeferle, Clifton Collins Jr, William Belleau, Cameron Mann, Matt Gomez Hidaka, Rachel de la Torre.
Dir Ari Aster, Pro Lars Knudsen, Ari Aster and Ann Ruark, Screenplay Ari Aster, Ph Darius Khondji, Pro Des Elliott Hostetter, Ed Lucian Johnston, Music Daniel Pemberton and Bobby Krlic, Costumes Anna Terrazas, Dialect coach Liz Himelstein.
A24/Square Peg/828 Productions-Universal Pictures.
149 mins. USA. 2025. US Rel: 18 July 2025. UK Rel: 22 August 2025. Cert. 15.
