Writer-Director Ari Aster‘s latest nightmare vision turns the mirror outward and gets confrontational with a western paranoid thriller set in a period most are ready to leave in the past: the early days of lockdown in 2020. Eddington aims to push buttons as it satirizes everything from the absurdity of the pandemic’s early days to the echo chambers and politics tearing communities apart. It’s at once familiar and unpredictable, and increasingly violent. It’s also unpleasant to watch, by design.
Eddington instantly transports us back to May 2020, a time when toilet paper was being hoarded and mask mandates were already causing friction, despite the fictional small-town setting in New Mexico.
Micheal Ward, Joaquin Phoenix, and Luke Grimes. Photo credit: Richard Foreman
At the forefront of the town’s increasingly volatile descent into full-blown chaos and violence is asthmatic wife guy Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), a not particularly bright man with a chip on his shoulder especially when it comes to Eddington’s mayor, progressive Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), a man with fleeting romantic ties to Joe’s wife Louise (Emma Stone) and up for re-election. As the chip on Joe’s shoulders continues to grow, escalating tension and conspiracies between the men prove contagious as the entire town is plunged into an explosive pressure cooker.
Ari Aster covers quite a lot of ground, pulling in all the summer 2020 highlights to fan the flames of a community unraveling upon itself. Everything from Black Lives Matter protests to the rise of Eddington’s own version of Kyle Rittenhouse, exacerbated by echo chambers and, of course, social media. Aster marries the western framework, complete with gunfights in the dusty town square, to the conspiracy thriller to heighten reality just enough to really drive home the absurdity of it all.
It’s a powder keg that gets a bit too ambitious in its bid to recapture every single facet or tension point of 2020, growing increasingly convoluted over the runtime. That’s not helped by a rather unlikable ensemble of characters, with only Louise coming out sympathetic and unscathed among the key players for her heartbreaking subplot of childhood abuse. That’s not to say that the performances are terrible; Phoenix is riveting as one of the most inept and frustrating town cops to come along in a while (expect ACAB to also play a factor here).
Micheal Ward, Joaquin Phoenix, and Luke Grimes. Photo credit: Richard Foreman
As if it’s not evident, Aster is juggling a lot of different ideas, tones, and themes with his fourth feature. That there’s so much ground to cover leaves little room for interrogation, and Aster doesn’t seem interested in offering commentary beyond pointing out just how deranged it all is. Of course, there’s the question of whether any of this needed to be pointed out, especially as the film careens toward a rather cynical conclusion hinting toward our present.
Eddington is well directed, as expected, and far more straightforward and accessible than Aster’s previous film, Beau is Afraid. It also boasts memorable performances, with Phoenix and Stone at their most eccentric, and no shortage of standout supporting players like William Belleau’s competent cop from the neighboring Indigenous land. But it’s also bloated and self-indulgent, and Aster struggles to cohesively corral all the lofty but superficially rendered ideas.
Instead, Eddington makes you sit with the discomforting tour down memory lane, just dialed up to violent, satirical excess. That it feels like it’s punching down in its pitch-black observations only further frustrates. Aster’s latest winds up feeling like empty provocation for provocation’s sake, and not much else.
Eddington releases in theaters on July 18, 2025.
