Eddington (dir. Ari Aster)

by Jack Martin | Aug 22, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 149 mins

UK Distributor: Universal Pictures

UK Release Date: 22 August 2025

WHO’S IN EDDINGTON?

Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Amélie Hoeferle, Clifton Collins Jr., William Belleau, Matt Gomez Hidaka, Cameron Mann, Landall Goolsby, Elise Falanga, Robert Mark Wallace

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Ari Aster (director, writer, producer), Lars Knudsen and Ann Ruark (producers), Bobby Krlic and Daniel Pemberton (composers), Darius Khondji (cinematographer), Lucian Johnston (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A small town in COVID-era America descends into chaos…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON EDDINGTON?

“But it did happen.” This simple four-word slogan flashes for a few frames during the insane frog-heavy climax of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, as if to say that no matter how much we try to deny such crazy events are happening or have happened, whether it’s personal issues or unholy acts of nature, nothing can change the fact that they are now part of our history.

The same can be said for the year 2020. Even five years on, we are still recovering from the psychological and frankly exhausting barrage of bollocks it threw at us all, from a global pandemic that effectively put our lives on seemingly eternal pause, to the outrage of the Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of overzealous cops. But again, as much as we want to forget that such a recent period of time existed, it nonetheless happened, and all we can do now is look back on the madness and laugh, cry, and maybe even learn something.

In those last two paragraphs alone, I feel that I had much more to say on the subject than filmmaker Ari Aster does with his latest film Eddington, an admittedly ambitious Western that certainly attempts to offer some sort of commentary on the whole debacle, but more often than not struggles to form a coherent sentence, let alone an actual observation.

The film takes place in the titular New Mexico town in May 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic well under way and mandated protocols, from wearing masks in public places to staying a good few feet from others, in full effect. Few are more annoyed by these mandates than the town’s sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), who not only refuses to wear a mask even when explicitly instructed to but believes that such rules, as enforced by the town’s mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), are encroaching on the rights and freedoms of the townspeople. In response, but largely out of spite for Ted, he decides to run for office himself, mobilising his fellow officers as campaign managers and converting his police cruiser into an all-out propaganda machine, much to the chagrin of Joe’s emotionally disturbed wife Louise (Emma Stone) and her conspiracy-obsessed mother Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), who soon turn to handsome conspiracy theorist and probable cult leader Vernon Jefferson Peak (Austin Butler) for solace. Soon, though, what starts as a petty political rivalry descends into complete chaos as Joe makes more and more misguided decisions to fuel his warped sense of ambition.

Aster, a talented provocateur of a filmmaker whose best film remains his 2018 debut Hereditary, has at his disposal numerous ingredients for a savage 2020 satire that definitively sums up the American culture of that year, but utilises too few of them to make something truly edible. The filmmaker settles for shock value more than anything, with sudden bursts of violence and the occasional dropping of offensive slurs substituting for cohesive commentary, while offering a slew of largely uninteresting side characters who spout dialogue that sounds like the most obnoxious Twitter drafts from both sides of the political spectrum, and rarely does it have much of a point other than to get a shocked reaction from the viewer. One could argue that’s the intention, given how much a shock to the system the events of 2020 were for us all, but Aster isn’t quite able to stitch them all together in a way that makes it seem as though he has anything to truly say within the context of his own narrative.

It’s honestly a shame that the filmmaker can’t make it work as a whole, because truth be told there are some strong components at play here. For one, the film does have an amusing sense of humour, largely from the incompetence of Phoenix’s sheriff and his crew as they have to be reminded by concerned civilians to actually do their jobs as the town succumbs to BLM protests whilst they’re busy figuring out how to run a successful mayoral campaign. The performances from the ensemble cast lean effectively into the increasingly dark absurdity of Aster’s script and direction, and while the likes of Stone and Butler aren’t on-screen for that long, they nonetheless leave a good enough impression that you almost want to see more of their story than the one we’re actually being given. It’s also a well-shot film, with atmospheric cinematography highlighting the ghost-town vibes of these barely populated streets and surrounding desert landscapes.

Unfortunately, Aster isn’t able to combine them into something that makes a valuable or memorable point, with the film coming across largely as an unpleasant and slightly mean-spirited mockery of society at large during an unprecedented time in our collective recent past. Again, there is an argument to be made that Eddington is meant to be a sobering reflection on how we all behaved quite insufferably in 2020, regardless of intentions, but even if that was the case, this isn’t a very good attempt because it doesn’t have a valuable message to depart other than how we all, in our own ways, kind of suck and are prone to dangerous acts out of spite and hatred for one another.

Like 2020 itself, Eddington is a film that you’ll largely want to forget ever happened… but it did happen.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Eddington wastes its potential to be an all-encompassing commentary on the madness of the year 2020, as filmmaker Ari Aster instead relies on shock value and an unpleasant tone instead of the numerous rather valuable ingredients at his disposal to craft a pretty nasty portrait of an era most of us would like to forget.