Eddington

Grade: B-

Eddington’s director, Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid) throws so much at us in his new movie, that by the time it was winding down, I felt pretty far removed from where we started. He has an amazing imagination, and we get the sense that he can’t wait to tell us everything in his head. And he does tell EVERYTHING. As bloated and all over the place as it is, Aster never half-asses anything. The film looks great and has talented actors.

Joaquin Phoenix previously worked with Aster on Beau Is Afraid, and I’d welcome many more collaborations between them. He is on the very short list of living actors who play tortured, high-strung, and unhinged the best. He has an Oscar for playing such a character. He plays Joe Cross, the sheriff of Eddington, New Mexico. It’s May of 2020. It’s the middle of (hopefully) the only global pandemic of our lifetime. He wears a mask as little as possible, while butting heads with mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), an ardent mask enforcer. Subplots involve Emma Stone as Joe’s wife, and Austin Butler as a new-agey drifter. They weave in and out, as Eddington has its fingers in many pies. Among several genres, it’s a Western, a very dark comedy with 4 or 5 laugh-out-loud moments, and a thriller.

If this review seems a bit surfaced, it’s because that’s how Eddington made me feel. It’s a “We Didn’t Start the Fire” about 2020. It name-checks most of the biggest significant aspects of the year (Covid, Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, mask debates, TikTok, etc), but doesn’t do a thing with them, other than be a snapshot of the year. It’s literally just “Hey, remember when all this stuff happened? Wasn’t that crazy?” You can’t get a handle on it, or go deeper.

The road in Eddington is long and meandering. By the end, I almost had to remind myself I was in the same movie. However, even in the moments where it all felt like a bunch of white noise, and I mentally stepped back from the plot, there is a great amount of technical prowess to appreciate. Aster always swings for the fences, never doing anything subtly. I said, upon seeing his last movie, that he’s one of my favorite directors working today, and I can’t wait to see his next project. I still feel that way. I am giving him a pass this time with Eddington, but if he doesn’t come back with something more focused, I won’t show as much benefit of the doubt.

Grade: B-