A small New Mexico town, Eddington (shot in Truth or Consequences, NM) is a backdrop of what is supposedly the cross section of America during Covid-19 pandemic. Ari Aster, a millennial director made his name for his family-based trauma horrors (Hereditary, Midsommar), with a hip studio backing (A24), embark on his take on what our divided America looks like. The result is a half-baked satire gone wrong that suffers from the worst case of both-sideism and falls for very obvious conspiracy theories it thinks it's making fun of.
The sheriff of the town is Joe Cross (Joachim Phoenix), living with his child-abuse-surviver wife, Louise (Emma Stone) and her conspiracy-addled mother, Dawn (Deirdre O'Connell) who moved in during the pandemic for the time being. Joe's boorish anti-establishment sentiment extends to not wearing masks in public, and therefore not following the mandate imposed by the town's mayor Garcia (Pedro Pascal), who shares a history with Louise. It's an election year and after a lot of confrontations about masking policy, Joe decides to run against Garcia for the election, despite Louise's objection to the prospect of not being left alone and bothered by reporters digging into her past.
This is also the time of George Floyd’s death, BLM and the rising Antifa movement. White young teens in Eddington start protesting in the streets and with everything being recorded on the phone and instantly posted on social media, Joe's every public conduct is scrutinized. After his failed attempt to smear Garcia with his wife's story, Louise leaves, and Joe chooses violence and coverup. And neighboring Pueblo Native American police are on his tail.
This is Aster's moment to capture the zeitgeist - the angst of the divisive nation which became more apparent during the pandemic. But Eddington, which starts out addressing many of these conflicting issues, quickly and decisively succumbs to the conspiratorial nature of our social media and misinformation discourse: Yes, privileged white teens are stupid and don't know what they are talking about. Yes pandemic deniers and anti vaxxers who died deserved their fate. But George Soros funded jet-set Antifa terrorists dressed like ninjas with heavy artillery and drone technology descending upon a small town to take out a small town sheriff? Aster even provides a video clip of 'terrorists' engaging in a fierce gun battle with the police in the streets without providing any context, over and over.
Eddington becomes an action thriller about 2/3rd way in. All of the minority characters are either dead or gravely injured. Michael, a young black deputy in Joe's station becomes a scapegoat for Joe but also the target of 'Antifa terrorists' with extremely fuzzy details. And still, are we supposed to be identifying with Joe?
Feedom, racism, white privilege, pedophilia, 2nd amendment all take part in the Aster's everything in the blender approach, hitting none of it. Muddled in its messaging, the film plays out like a sub-par South Park episode, a vanity project of a self-absorbed director who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. I think it's time that we stop bowing to the altar of the auteurs and the hip, boutique movie studios that propagate their unchecked greatness.
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