Written by Sam Clark
Certificate: 15
Running time: 148 minutes
Director: Ari Aster
Ari Aster is one of those filmmakers whose debut feature proved to be so successful with audiences and critics, that it catapulted him into the spotlight straightaway. I am of course talking about Hereditary, one of the best horror films in decades (the only one I have ever seen be compared to the greatest ever made in the form of The Exorcist, so make of what you will) and yet another reminder why A24 have become one of the best studios in the business. However, since then, I'm afraid he has started to fizzle out for me. After Hereditary, the pressure was high for what he would produce next, which is where his ritualistic horror Midsommar came along (another A24 product). Despite being as hallucinogenic and trippy as a film like this should be and featuring all manner of 18 rated content, there was just something about it that rang hollow for me. I'll save my breath for Beau is Afraid which was admirably ambitious but really divided the masses.
Needless to say, the low have heavily outweighed the highs for him in my opinion, and so the pressure was on for Eddington.. and I'm afraid he has stumbled once more. He writes and directs once again here. Set in May of 2020, Joaquin Phoenix is Joe Cross, the sheriff in the fictional town of ''Eddington'' in New Mexico, who clashes and butts heads with the mayor Ted Garcia who is having his own political battles elsewhere (Pedro Pascal yet again returning to our cinema screens - how does he have time for all these projects?). Between them, they try and even out the towns turmoil amidst the coronavirus pandemic. Ted announces mask mandates and lockdown measures, prompting backlash from Joe who argues that they infringe on personal freedom and so on, much like what has occurred in real life too, which I'll come to. He is asthmatic and refused to comply and does not wear one to local shops, much to the anger of everyone else in the town.
Image credit: IMDb / A24
He decides that enough his enough, and decides to run against Ted for mayor. Also in the background of all this is Joe's wife Louise (Emma Stone), for whom he is having marital issues with, and her conspiracy theorist mother Dawn (Deidre O'Connell) who only further complicated proceedings. In large part, Eddington is somewhat of an improvement over recent times for Aster, but since he CV as of recent has left me underwhelmed and disconnected, that was not hard to do. Having said that, those two issues were rekindled here slightly which has been what's missing. I do think Eddington is directorially well crafted from Aster, with a particular emphasis on patience to build drama and tension, something we all know he did masterfully with a particular scene from Hereditary (if you know, you know).
There is a lot going on here, but what Eddington seems to want to do is remind us of the utter disaster the period of covid was, whether it's public outrage and uproar, or how the powers that be handled the situation. Included within that is also a deep dive into how social media and the internet played it's villainous part too. I was initially surprised by how the film conveys it's message, as I went in expecting a big lecture and telling off on how awful these times were. The film doesn't lecture us in the way I though it would, but instead shows how a fictious town and characters would react to a real world situation.
Image credit: IMDb / A24
Events such as black lives matter are also heavily, heavily focused upon as the film constructs it's own narrative around that. My biggest gripe with Eddington is that it just seemed to tell us stuff we already knew without the impact. Yes, social media is also one of the most dangerous things in the world and there's also a strong message about your rights to protest, but give me more. In Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman, the film ended with real life footage of why the the film itself was so important - including far right and far left protests which ultimately turned violent and saw fataltities, as well as one of Trump's speeches. The devastating chaos that erupted during a black lives matter march in the film was spine chilling and absolutely horrifying to watch, and I still to this day remember how quiet the entire cinema fell.
It was the perfect way to end a film like that, leave the audience speechless with what really happens in the real world, things that will always be far scarier than anything shown in a any film. I wanted this to show us the horrors of the today's society and why it is things are so bad and why we should care so much, instead of the purely fictionalized version. The film has a near two and a half hour running time in which plenty could have been shown, and I just felt as though it has been wasted. Perhaps we deserved a little more than what he has given us? But, this is clearly the avenue Aster has want to take, it's just a shame it is one that has not had the lasting effect on me that I wanted. He proved with Hereditary just how great of a filmmaker he is, but he has sadly not been able to return to that form ever since. I never stop watching a filmmaker because of a poor run of work, everyone goes through it, I just want to be able to enjoy his work again. My fingers are firmly crossed for what comes next.
in cinemas now.
