Review of the movie "Eddington"

On August 14, cinemas began showing the satirical black comedy neo-Western Eddington, in which the famous horror maker Ari Aster departs from his favorite cinematic direction… to what? To make fun of something? To remind the viewer of human stupidity? Or just to have fun in a long-desired genre, on the condition that the entertainment is extremely bizarre? Let’s find out in the review below.

“Eddington”

Genre satirical neo-western
Director Ari Aster
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Michael Ward, Clifton Collins Jr
Premiere movie theaters
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb, official website

It’s May 2020, and the hated covid is ravaging the world. Visibly beaten down by life, the tired sheriff of the small town of Eddington, New Mexico, Joe Cross, categorically refuses to wear a protective mask. But this is the least of his worries. His wife Louise is constantly depressed and focused on creating ugly dolls that can easily compete with Phoebe Buffet’s “works of art”. Joe is also annoyed by his mother-in-law Dawn, an ardent conspiracy theorist who has come to visit Eddington, where the effects of the pandemic are not yet particularly noticeable. A local tramp is also a constant troublemaker in a city where time seems to have frozen.

But the biggest problem for Cross is Mayor Ted Garcia, with whom the sheriff has a long-standing score to settle. The two men don’t get along, and their conflict only intensifies when Joe decides to run for mayor in the upcoming election. Meanwhile, Eddington gradually ceases to be a quiet town where nothing happens, and soon the numerous upheavals will echo ominously here.

There is no doubt that Ari Aster is an extremely talented filmmaker who made a bold statement with his debut Hereditary (2018) and later strengthened his position as a Filmmaker with a capital F with Midsommar. With these two films, the director not only became one of the trendsetters of the so-called post-horror, but also taught the discerning viewer to expect something extraordinary, special, and bizarre from each of his works.

Actually, Aster’s previous film, a strange surreal tragicomedy Beau Is Afraid (2023), to a certain extent, became a hostage to high expectations and was more restrained in its perception by both critics and audiences. It was from this film that Joaquin Phoenix, one of the best actors of his generation, moved here.

It will hardly come as a surprise to anyone that the covid woven into the story (damn the damn mask!) serves only as a catalyst for the madness that will unfold on the screen. And it’s a shame to trash a topic that’s not that relevant. Astaire’s motives are quite prosaic: the author makes a disappointing diagnosis of society, in particular American society, which is stirred up by the very pandemic, Trumpism, ubiquitous social media, and the BLM movement. This was caused by the scandalous murder of African-American George Floyd and has layered on top of the already unhealthy atmosphere inside the country.

The storming of the Capitol (which was directly mentioned in the recent “The Order”), which took place in early 2021. This is not specifically mentioned here, but the interconnections between all these events, which eloquently characterize the situation in the United States at the time, are quite obvious.

No wonder tiny Eddington is experiencing its own local disasters caused by global disasters, both for America and the world. And no matter how hard the long-suffering sheriff tries to convince everyone that the tragic incident happened somewhere else, on the other side of the country, and the virus has not yet reached here. It will not be possible to get rid of the influence of these factors.

At the same time, whether bored with the lockdown or with life in this godforsaken hole, Eddington teenagers are protesting in support of BLM. Despite the fact that there seems to be only one black person in the city, and he is a police officer. These are either funny or scary paradoxes.

Aster makes it clear that in the era of all-consuming social media, a smartphone can serve as at least as effective a weapon as a rifle or the good old Colt SAA .45 caliber, which was popular in classic westerns. After all, it is thanks to the conventional (at that time) Twitter or TikTok that you can manipulate public opinion to your own advantage, create a sensation in the media, drive content consumers crazy, etc.

Also, thanks to social media or other media platforms, one can easily take advantage of the situation and become a popular spiritual guru; of course, it is easier to do this when society is most vulnerable, when people no longer know what to believe. In this context, the storyline of the protagonist’s wife, played by Emma Stone, is telling. This is probably the weakest arc in the whole movie, but its existence is really justified.

Ari Aster delivers another undeniably interesting movie, but with reservations. It is not so funny where there seems to be reasons for uncertain laughter, and not so witty when it comes to satirical power. In his attempts to touch on as many acutely social issues as possible, he never dares to make a clear authorial statement.

On the other hand, even without any movies, it has long been clear that not only America, but the whole world has finally gone mad.