Writer-director Ari Aster, maker of horror classics Hereditary and Midsommar, went off the rails a bit with his 2023 film, Beau Is Afraid, a crazy collaboration with Joaquin Phoenix that ultimately worked due to its performances, its sheer craftmanship and a gonzo vibe; the film felt fully committed to its purpose of freaking you out. It was as strange as a movie can get, and I applauded him for it.
Alas, Aster’s impressive streak of maverick cinema has come to an end with Eddington. The film, a strange take on conspiracy theorists, the pandemic era, social media and street protests, claims to be a satire, but it’s just a bunch of nonsense thrown against the wall parading as a character study.
The movie feels like something Aster wrote with the guiding intention of not editing himself at all: “I’m gonna write all of this shit down that is bothering me, in stream-of-consciousness fashion, and we are going to film all of it, and we’ll just see how it all turns out!”
It’s an overlong mess—2 1/2 hours—with no sense of purpose. While nobody is safe on the left or right in the movie, it’s non-committal. Sometimes, that can be a good thing, but, in this case, the film seems afraid of itself, so it just meanders from one increasingly outrageous situation to another as we witness a sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) completely lose control after a few incidents in May 2020 during which he refuses to wear a mask in public places.
The film plays like a long scroll through TikTok on a pandemic Sunday afternoon when you were extremely hungover: It’s boring—peppered by a few interesting things here and there, but packed with too many nonsensical elements to establish it as anything other than a failed curio, despite its impressive pedigree.
That pedigree, in addition to Aster and Phoenix, includes Pedro Pascal as the mayor of the title city, Emma Stone as the sheriff’s wife, and Austin Butler as some sort of cult leader. Pascal’s part comes to the closest to being fully formed, with his subplot having the most heft. Stone’s part gives one of the most important actresses in the world next to nothing to do, while Butler drifts in and out of a few scenes of little consequence.
There is a place in the world for a straightforward, tighter take on a person having a nervous breakdown during the pandemic. Sure, it could include commentary about social media, politics, MAGA, being “woke” and the general state of the United States, but a real movie about a dude losing his shit during the pandemic starring Phoenix could’ve been something else.
Instead, Aster throws in those subplots, pads his running time, and loses his sense of purpose. By the time toward the film’s end when Phoenix is running around with a big gun like Sylvester Stallone in First Blood, I couldn’t help but think, “Why?”
In a strange way, this is one of the best Phoenix performances put to film. Just as he did in Beau Is Afraid, he lets it all hang out in this movie, and I could almost recommend the film based on what he does. In fact, if you are a diehard Phoenix fan, I suppose you must see this movie, because the man can act; he’s handed pure insanity to translate; and he does it well. He emerges from this film unscathed.
While I don’t like this movie, I am glad there is a nutball like Ari Aster taking big swings. He’s batting .750 with his last four movies, and I’m confident he will rise again with something that is, most assuredly, totally insane—but tighter, and with purpose.