Ari Aster is one of those directors who is considered must watch movie going. Whether you like his movies or not, you have to see them. That’s how I felt after watching his first one, Hereditary, in 2018. I’ve anxiously awaited the next three films he’s made with abated breath ever since. I loved Midsummar, and I didn’t love Beau Is Afraid, that much, but that didn’t stop me from seeing his latest film, Eddington. I heard mixed things about this movie out of the Festival De Cannes back in May, but that didn’t dissuade me either. I was going to see this film no matter what I heard about it because Aster is an auteur director who makes films that should always be seen similarly to Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Christopher Nolan. He’s become one of those guys. I finally got to see Eddington last night at a press screening, and here are my thoughts on the film.

Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) is the sheriff of the fictional town of Eddington, New Mexico,  in 2020. During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. He is at odds with the town mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) over pandemic restrictions. This causes him to run for mayor of the town to fight for what he believes is the right thing. He doesn’t like to wear a mask because he has asthma. He’s not the only one in his dying town that feels this way. He believes the laws of the state that have been put in place to prohibit anyone from not wearing a mask if they don’t want to because there are no cases of Covid-19 in his state. The mayor feels otherwise,  and they are at odds with each other because of this disagreement. This isn’t the only problem in this town or in America,  though during this year. The film delves into all of it from Aster’s unique perspective.

Eddington is split into two distinct parts.The first part of the movie is based in reality as Aster sees it. He uses documented events that were going on at the time to accentuate the feelings of the publi. For instance, George Flyotd is killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This causes riots in the town and gets kids to protest. These kinds of things happened all over the country whether they were for the right reasons or not. Kids were protesting, and they didn’t realize what they were protesting for or against. It was just a wild situation all around the country at that time.  A subplot in the film would show there were underlying circumstances why this stuff was going on. Aster played all of this up against what we all went through at this time. We could relate to these things as well. Phoenix’s character, though, was a bit oblivious to what was actually going on until he had to act on the situation involving looting and vandalizing local storefronts and a bar. He wanted to stand on the sidelines until he couldn’t anymore. When he finally acted, he did it very decisively and with calculated force.

The second half of the film was something entirely different but was spurned on by a message Phoenix;s character gave at a press conference. Because of his actions prior in the film, he inevitably caused something to go into motion he had no control over. This scenario was like something out of a first-person shooter video game. That’s how it played out on screen to me. I felt like I was involved in one of these games that a lot of people were playing during the Covid-19 pandemic to keep themselves busy or from going mad because they were in lockdown. for months on end. The second half of the movie was crazy and wild. There is no other way to put it. Aster used a fictional protagonist in this portion of the film, and they were very effective in showing the craziness in the country at  the time. The second half worked very well to show what the country was dealing with as much as the first half did, but in a different way.

Aster has built up enough clout with the public so as to be able to get whichever actors he wanted to work with to sign on to his films. He assembled an all-star cast for this movie. Starting with Oscar winner Phoenix, who he worked with on the aforementioned Beau is Afraid in 2023. He seems to have pretty good chemistry with Phoenix by this point because he was great in this film as the bumbling sheriff who didn’t know up from down or right from wrong. Phoenix owned this role, which definitely reminded me of somebody who is currently in public office in the big white house. Pascal seems to be everywhere right now from streaming shows like the Last of Us to little indie films like Freaky Tales to massive blockbusters like the Fantastic Four First Step coming out in another week. He was like the straight man in this oddly weird comedy duo with Phoenix being the funny man. I feel a lot of people will relate to the Pascal character in the film. Emma Stone, who I haven’t mentioned yet, is the wife of Phoenix;s character, but she is in her own world opposite Phoenix in this film. Once again, Aster writes something off the wall into the script specifically for the Stone and Austin Butler characters. I’m sure he had his reasons, but search me, I don’t know what they were. Michael Ward, Luke Grimes, Emelie Hoeferle, Cameron Mann, and Matt Gomez Hidaka all have prominent supporting roles in the movie as well. This might be one of the best casts I’ve seen in any film all year thus far at this point. This is what you’d call a great ensemble if I ever saw one. They all complimented each other nicely.

We all have a Covid-19 story, and mine was pretty simple. I worked at a big national department/grocery store in this country, and we had strict rules regarding Covid-19 precautions.  They even changed their hours of operation because of mandated curfew hours. I no longer work for them, but I got a gist of what needed to be done to keep everyone safe. This didn’t cause everyone not to have Covid-19, but  it was what was mandated by the local government in the state I live in.  Some of the people didn’t want to wear masks for various reasons,  and others like myself did. The job was too important to me not to go to work at that time in my life. I had  sheriff Cross type characters and mayor Garcia type characters who worked around me all the time. I didn’t  get Covid-19 because I took the vaccines and others did because they didn’t take the vaccines,  but still others who didn’t get the vaccines who didn’t believe in it didn’t get Covid-19. It was just what was going on at the time. I stayed to myself most of the time. I believe we have the right to choose when it comes to this kind of thing. I chose to stay safe.  Others did not and paid the consequences.  The film shows how crazy things got during this time and how crazy people were on both sides of this argument. 

Two of the things I noticed about this film that I thought were excellent were the music by Daniel Pemberton and Bobby Krlic and the cinematography by Darius Khondji.  Both elements were essential to the overall development of the movie. The music was moody and had me from the word go. The cinematography was excellent. There are multiple long lens shots of things in the foreground while things were also going on in the background. The way he shot New Mexico made it look beautiful despite all the dark and crazy stuff going on. Even inside homes and rooms were shot to perfection.  This is how you shoot indoor scenes in a film . The outside scenes and there were many all looked masterfully done. This was a gorgeously shot movie from beginning to end.

In the description of the film it says comedy. There are a handful of moments that made me laugh in this movie. The sheriff’s car is strewn with all kinds of slogans to help people decide to vote for him. I read most of them, and they cracked me up. The sheriff played by Phoenix was quite funny at times, but he wasn’t the only one. Aster littered the script with one-liners and zingers that made me laugh. The whole scenario that was going in was very comedic even though it shouldn’t have been in the end.  I’m sure many people will find this story pretty hilarious at times.

Aster is trying to do a lot with Eddington. He’s very ambitious with his approach to the story overall. It worked for me, though, because I saw his vision.  He wanted to show the audience watching this film how crazy things were during that time and how much crazier we made things because of our own paranoia. There were people in charge of the country at the time who didn’t have a grasp on the situation and didn’t take things as seriously as they should, namely the president at the time and current president today.  The irony of the situation is that we as a country didn’t learn from our mistakes. You know the saying “those that don’t learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them”. That’s what’s happening now, only it’s worse. I never thought things could get worse than back then, but they have. There is a reason Aster is considered an auteur director. He likes to take big swings. Sometimes, big swings work, and other times, they don’t. This worked for me quite well, but I can see it not working for others. This is one of my favorite films of 2025 thus far.

4 ½  Stars

Dan Skip Allen