'Eddington' Review: One state, two state, red state, blue state

As much as Aster captures aspects of the COVID-19 hysteria in Eddington, the oversimplification of its messaging and interminable slog of its pacing does it no favors

There are very few points in time thus far in my short life that I’d prefer not to return to than the frustration of COVID-19 lockdown. Admittedly, my lockdown was pretty uneventful. I moved back in with my parents, worked remotely, went on regular walks, watched a ton of movies, tried to start a YouTube channel, and spent a lot of time with my new cat. What escalated the tension of the entire ordeal was having to be inundated with the worst of the American media news cycle on a daily basis under worst case scenario leadership. On top of seeing the mass escalation of the Black Lives Matter movement after the wrongful death of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, resulting in global demonstrations, protests, and rioting, the feeling of hopelessness piled on and persisted well into the coming years. Five years removed from the COVID-19 lockdown, we are admittedly more divided than ever, and the two elections between then and now definitely didn’t help matters. Needless to say, this has been a difficult decade thus far, and Ari Aster wanted to say something about it.

When interviewed at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, Aster stated, “I wrote this film in a state of fear and anxiety about the world, and I wanted to try and pull back and describe what it feels like to live in a world where nobody can agree on what is real anymore. We’ve fallen into this age of hyper-individualism: that social force that used to be central in liberal mass democracies, which is an agreed-upon version of the world. That is gone now.” I couldn’t agree more, Ari. However, somewhere in the making of Aster’s fourth film, Eddington (2025), the auteur lost the narrative and succumbed to the broad strokes with which we paint conversations about our newfound division. The end result is an ambitious, but oversimplified amalgamation of left vs. right sentimentation that never amounts to more than pointing at a problem to avoid taking a stance.

Eddington, New Mexico, a fictional town of around 2,500 souls is the subject of Eddington, but just about any town of its size could fit in its place. Two months into lockdown, but just on the cusp of the George Floyd protests, Eddington finds itself looking down the barrel of initial division. Republican v. democrat conversations about masks in public places and social distancing escalate into full-on arguments in town, none more heated than between Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) and Eddington’s incumbent mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal). With Garcia running for reelection, an argument inspires Cross to run for mayor of Eddington to spite the powers that be, but not before the world around him begins to drastically change. Black Lives Matter protests begin to take over the country, with Cross unable to handle the increasing protest presence and Garcia’s son Eric (Matt Gomez Hidaka) getting involved to impress local activist Sarah (Amélie Hoeferle). Their separate paths cross, all while Cross’ wife Louise (Emma Stone) comes under the influence of Vernon Jefferson Peak (Austin Butler), a radical cult leader. The increasing tension that encompasses the first half of Eddington builds into a more meticulous back half, all as we’re trying to make sense of Aster’s underlying motivations.

The main issue that envelops Eddington is its sense of purpose. For all the small-town politics that escalate into national exposure, the commentary that Aster employs operates as a mix of too soon and too late. The too soon comes from a place of not wanting to revisit the anxiety-inducing state of frustration that came from enduring 2020 while we’re still in the midst of that turmoil and resulting fallout. The fictionalized account that Aster uses to hold a mirror to his audience rarely shares a 20/20 hindsight perspective of, “I told you so,” and falters on finding a unique perspective to shift our focus from what we already know. The too late, on the other hand, comes from the other side of the coin. Everything being said in Eddington has been said over and over again by pundits in the 24 hour media cycle, as well as in angry tweets and passing conversations between like-minded colleagues. The commentary Aster spews, especially in the first half, extends to aspects of the pandemic already made abundantly clear. Even with Aster painting conservatives as the primary agitators, flippant over the slightest inconvenience of wearing a mask, the bad-guys-on-both-sides shoehorning of liberal handwringing over following proper protocol doesn’t quite find a home. As much as there are moments of commentary that work and character-driven humor that lands, the vast majority of Eddington holds its audience’s feet to the fire while too many of us are still looking for an extinguisher.

C

Feature image credit to A24 via Los Angeles Times