A shocking and provocative tale of conspiracies and small-town politics gone wild as director Ari Aster continues to tackle subjects that send a shiver down the viewer’s spine. This time, it’s the year 2020.
It’s May 2020 in the New Mexico town of Eddington, we meet Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix). A hot-headed reactionary, he lives with his wife, Louise (Emma Stone), who barely acknowledges her husband’s struggles, and his deluded mother-in-law, Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), who has fallen far down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole thanks to Facebook.
While not a COVID denier, and despite being asthmatic, Joe is frustrated with the mask mandates that have just reached his sleepy apparently COVID free town. Joe pushes back, creating further friction with the progressive but smug mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), Louise’s slick and self-satisfied ex.
Tensions escalate when Joe decides to run against the unopposed Ted for mayor. To do so, he embraces being the anti-Ted, anti-lockdown, anti-government, and pro-conspiracy.
The film’s targets shift often. Both sides of the American cultural divide are skewered. Dawn is shown clutching her printed-out sheets of unsubstantiated theories, while Austin Butler’s creepy YouTube guru a man who has all the answers, is clearly predatory.
But the other side doesn’t escape either. We meet cops who take offense at Joe not wearing a mask while sitting alone in his car in the middle of the desert, or the virtue-signalling young white activists who tie themselves in knots apologizing for speaking truth to power, all while barely noticing the rapidly advancing plans for a resource guzzling data centre just outside town, something the supposedly eco-conscious mayor is quietly supporting.
The mayoral race quickly turns dirty, ideologies clash, and the political and cultural divide widens in a town that might be better off cut off from the rest of America and its problems.
Eddington is a town on the brink, and its sheriff and mayoral candidate’s mental health is hanging by a thread. If someone wanted to understand how America got to where it is today, pointing them towards this film would be an excellent start.
Bound to be just as divisive as his previous Beau is Afraid, Ari Aster’s Eddington runs a little too long and isn’t as slick or focused as his previous projects, but it’s still well worth your time (as was Beau is Afraid).
It’s a razor-sharp satire with genuinely shocking moments and pitch-perfect performances, especially from Phoenix, whose volatile sheriff is a joy to watch.
Who would have thought we’d get ever get a film that feels like a dystopian nightmare, but is set only five years ago?
