Eddington may represent a first for cinema, a mainstream movie making light of a modern pandemic.  To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a humorous take on SARS, Ebola, the opioid crisis or AIDS.  This isn’t to say that such a movie couldn’t have been made.  As George Carlin once noted, there’s no topic that’s off-limits when it comes to comedy.  However, using a traumatic event like the Covid pandemic as the source of laughs requires a take no prisoners approach, no matter how insensitive it may be perceived.  That’s the fundamental problem with Eddington, which is too selective in the targets and too gentile in how it handles what it does take aim at.  The movie is timid where it needed to be ruthless, circuitous when it should have been forthright.

The movie begins in early 2000, when the Covid pandemic has made its presence felt in the town of Eddington, New Mexico.  People are wearing masks, social distancing and businesses have either closed or have severely limited access.  While these impingements on everyone’s freedom were legally mandated out of an abundance of caution, time has shown that they had minimal impact on the spread of the virus.  For example, most people either didn’t have masks suitable to block the virus or wore them incorrectly.  As we now know, maintaining six feet of separation was arbitrary and not based on science, making whether you caught the virus at an establishment a ventilation issue.  (The movie curiously omits pointing out that movie theaters were ordered closed for almost a year despite no evidence of their culpability.)

What does Eddington have to say about the precautions everyone was mandated to follow?  Aside from pointing out how weird things now look in hindsight, nothing.  However, these rules seriously irritate county sheriff Joe Cross (River Phoenix), who suffers from asthma.  Wearing a mask is excruciating for him, so he refuses to wear it at the local grocery store.  He also takes umbrage at senior citizens being denied entry to the store for the same reason, and posts an angry video on social media.

Joe also seriously dislikes mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), for reasons that the movie never explains.  What we do know is that Ted once was in a relationship with Joe’s wife Louise (Emma Stone), and Ted broke things off with her.  Whatever between Ted and Louise didn’t prevent Joe from marrying her, and wedding videos attest to the two of them being happy at that event.  For a movie to not provide any insight into this love triangle, around which the entire plot revolves, is particularly frustrating.

Things between Joe and Louise have curdled since their wedding day, revealing that his antipathy towards Covid rules and regulations is actually rooted in his disappointing personal life.  Louise has a problem with intimacy, perhaps a nod to the greatest of all satires, Dr. Strangelove.  Louise’s mother Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell) lives with them, and Dawn’s addiction to vaccine conspiracy theories puts everyone in a sour mood.  For their part, Louise has become enthralled with sites that discuss pedophilia, and Joe spends his nighttime hours doomscrolling.  Together, the three symbolize the breakdown of traditional societal connections, which were replaced by social media and the internet.  Again, the movie is largely matter-of-fact in its approach to this subject matter, pointing at what happened back then with a “so, that happened” attitude.

Turns out that the pandemic isn’t bad for everyone.  Ted is pushing the city council to approve plans for a new data center that would benefit the town.  If there’s more to Ted’s advocacy than that, the movie never tells us.  In a minor bending of Covid rules, Ted holds a council meeting to discuss the data center in a bar that’s normally closed.  When the foul-mouth, smelly town vagrant shows up banging on the door, Ted calls Joe to control the situation.  Having to do this for Ted is just another triggering event for Joe, and he decides to take Ted on in the mayoral election.

Since Joe is entering the race late and has held no fundraisers, his campaign is a cluster.  He employs officer Guy and sheriff trainee Michael as his staff, which is obviously against the law but is ignored by everyone in the movie.  Back home, Louise is furious at Joe’s decision because she doesn’t want the press to look into her history with Ted.  Whatever their history is, the movie refuses to say.

Further complicating matters is the murder of George Floyd, which emboldens the young and  overwhelmingly white residents of Eddington to take to the streets.  The protests are led by influencer Sarah (Amélie Hoeferle), a passionate, pretty blond who attracts two young men vying for her affection.  There’s Eric (Matt Gomez Hidaka), Ted’s son, who lobs caustic bombs at Joe whenever the two cross paths.  The other leg of this social justice warrior love triangle is Brian (Cameron Mann), who has become well-versed in the tenets of white fragility and white privilege.  Brian’s anti-whiteness earns the scorn of his parents, who remind him at the dinner table that calling for the abolition of the white race is ludicrous because…he’s white.

Joe and his officers handle the protests poorly and their actions are captured on a video that goes viral.  Joe’s response to this bad publicity is to turn the screws on Ted by making a wild accusation about him during a campaign stop.  Louise subsequently leaves Joe to spend time with an enigmatic guru named Vernon Peak (Austin Butler), who claims to have been sexually abused as a child.  A subsequent run-in with Ted leaves Joe humiliated, which further pushes Joe over the edge.  Joe takes decisive action against Ted, which puts him squarely in the crosshairs of Pueblo police officer Jimenez (William Belleau).  The movie then abruptly shifts gears with a turn of events so improbable that describing them as cartoonish is fair game, and ends on a satiric note that strains for “big truth” status but is merely trite. 

Recommendation

Is it possible to satirize a pandemic?  If you’re one of the millions who lost a loved one due to Covid, that answer is probably “no”.  That doesn’t prevent writer-director Ari Aster from trying, though.  Throughout Eddington, Aster frequently reminds us of what a strange time it was, way back in 2020 (Mask rage, social distancing, Black Lives Matter protests led by white people, etc.).  But satire is more than showing the audience things and asking, wasn’t that weird?  Aside from taking a few broad swipes at Covid-era behavior, Aster is content simply checking off boxes.  He isn’t out for blood, which is what the best satire does, but having a “remember when” conversation.

To liven things up, Joaquin Phoenix delivers an odd performance as the put-upon county sheriff.  Phoenix initially attempts a low, Southwestern drawl, which makes him incomprehensible.  (I was grateful when he dropped it.)  His character is a crack shot but otherwise a doofus, which makes me dubious that he could have lasted seven years at his job.  Aster eventually turns him into a real-life version of Yosemite Sam, which works because Phoenix excels at playing unhinged characters.  But his performance isn’t credible because his motivations are a black box and his decisions stupid at every turn.

Pedro Pascal is fine–for as long as he’s around.  He’s the straight man in this ensemble, a welcome antidote for the rest of the film’s cartoonishness.  The rest of the supporting cast–Deirdre O’Connell, Emma Stone and Austin Butler, are interesting but very loosely defined.  Butler fares the best as a handsome YouTube guru/huckster, but his character seems like it wandered in from another movie.  The trio of younger actors are annoyingly shrill.

In addition to the weak satire and Phoenix’s blotto comedic touches, Eddington also takes a stab at being neo western.  If the movie had fully committed to its No Country for Old Men inspired subplot, it would have worked much better.  Unfortunately, Aster isn’t the Cohen Brothers and doesn’t have their knack for black comedy, or deftness in switching tones.  For example, after an incredibly riveting gunfight in the third act, Aster immediately sabotages its impact with a bizarre coda that combines goofy transgressiveness with belated social commentary on big tech.

Although Eddington has some laughs and several intense action sequences, the movie flounders as a recreation of Covid-induced psychosis.  A satire misfire. Not recommended.

Analysis

Eddington has all of the ingredients necessary to become a film that is debated endlessly.  Its subject is recent and topical, a look back at Covid: Year One (2020).  The movie’s diffuse plot is a challenge to decipher.  It’s a satire, a genre that is either hit or miss.  Almost all of the characters in the movie are oddballs with inscrutable behaviors that beg for further analysis.  The movie is written and directed by Ari Aster, who is considered one of the best young directors working today after his horror movie hits Hereditary and Midsommar.  Lastly, the film features a cast who have been recognized by critics and industry organizations as being among the best.  Taken together, Eddington is catnip for people who love analyzing movies to figure out what they mean.

I’m not sure what effect(s) Aster intended Eddington to have on the audience.  I know how I felt while this cockeyed story unfolded, but I failed to detect a compelling message unifying it all.  Parts of it I admired, while others left me dumbfounded.  Similarly, there are performances that were captivating, and others that were grating to the point of being unbearable.  The movie features several scenes that speak to the craftsmanship behind the camera, but they’re surrounded by others that are listless.

Aster has been too good of a director for anyone to conclude that he’s suddenly become sloppy.  If I were to accuse the movie of anything, it would be that it’s unfocused.  Its tones and themes often work at cross-purposes, intentionally obscuring what I suspect is a straightforward message at its core.  The movie plays like a dare, with Aster seeing how far he can take things before the viewer will throw up their hands and walk away bewildered.  Is the point of this freakshow that the pandemic made everyone crazy (or crazier)?  I doubt that’s what Aster was after, but that’s primarily what I took away from this movie.

There are four aspects to Eddington that I delve into below:

• Covid remembrance as satire
• Joaquin Phoenix’s performance
• Sheriff Joe
• A neo-western
• Big tech fears

Covid remembrance as satire

Eddington is very effective at weaving many Covid-era references throughout the movie.  While there’s no way a single movie could mention everything of significance that happened in 2020, what the movie does include is fairly comprehensive:

• Senior radicalization via the internet
• Pedophile radicalization (4chan)
• Black Lives Matter protests
• Etsy careerists
• Mask rage
• The rise of internet-based companies
• White virtue signalling
• White fragility
• Ahmaud Arbery
• ANTIFA
• Doomscrolling
• Pandemic hoarding
• Covid symptoms
• Kyle Rittenhouse
• Zoom calls
• The steady invasion of Amazon delivery trucks
• Social distancing

Any movie that presents itself as a satire must be all-in.  It must be ruthless towards everything in its purview.  Eddington, however, is very circumspect over what aspects of the pandemic can be ridiculed and which ones can’t.  For example, BLM protestors Brian and Eric were only involved because they wanted to score with a pretty white girl.  Depicting ANTIFA as black-clad assassins was inspired.  Making Louise’s hideous dolls representative of the rise of ETSY opportunists was funny.  But many other aspects of the pandemic that the movie includes are simply presented “as is”, with no commentary whatsoever.

Sure, seeing people social-distance by an arbitrary six feet looks funny in hindsight.  And there’s an early scene where shopkeepers tussle with people who refuse to shop wearing masks.  But these moments are presented matter-of-factly.  I suspect Aster didn’t do anything with these aspects of the pandemic because he would be forced to acknowledge the deaths involved, as in the security guards were shot and killed for enforcing mask mandates.  This is the fundamental issue I had with the focus of Aster’s satire:  it’s wildly uneven and handles it with kid’s gloves.

In the beginning, the movie makes a point of showing how Joe’s mother-in-law Dawn is becoming radicalized against vaccines through videos on YouTube.  In a video we hear, the YouTuber uses numerology to make his case.  It’s funny, but the movie’s insight into this  phenomenon, where people allowed themselves to be duped by ridiculous logic, only amounts to “old people listened to dumb videos and got angry”.

Later, Joe discovers that Louise is losing herself in websites devoted to exposing pedophilia.  It’s an obvious reference to 4chan and “pizzagate”, but the movie never addresses why she is attracted to this subject matter or Vernon’s take on it.  The movie alludes to marital troubles between Joe and Louise, but doesn’t explain what their problems are.  The two are already far apart when we see them, rendering Louise’s sudden conversion confusing.

Eddington puts its satiric notions aside for the middle third of the movie, but returns to them in the last act, when Aster finally draws blood depicting Brian as a Kyle Rittenhouse-styled racial vigilante/profiteer.  The movie should have had that level of satire throughout, but gets sidetracked by the next two aspects of the movie.

Joaquin Phoenix’s performance

Nobody brings off-kilter intensity to a role like Phoenix.  I’m a defender of his acting in Napoleon and believe his second Academy Award for his performance in Joker was warranted.  That said, Phoenix’s performance in Eddington is a confusing muddle.

The problem I had with Phoenix’s performance is that I never believed it for a second.  Phoenix is one of those actors who can’t mask his intelligence, and you can see the wheels turning whenever he’s on screen.  Phoenix tries to portray Joe as dumb by adopting a peculiar speech pattern, which amounts to talking slowly, affecting a Western drawl and muttering.  This only succeeds in making his dialog unintelligible.  Phoenix also makes Joe clumsy, which turns him into a clown but not a dullard.

Phoenix’s overtly physical performance sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison to every other performance in the movie.  Despite his commitment, Phoenix is miscast.  The role was tailor made for Jesse Plemons, who can play thick-headed, clueless characters in his sleep.

Sheriff Joe

Eddington’s plot is set in motion by Joe’s reaction towards masks.  He has asthma, which makes it difficult for him to breathe while wearing one.  This was a common complaint during the pandemic, which makes Joe’s irritation understandable.  However, I never bought into Joe’s radicalization against pandemic policies because it happens so quickly.

Joe’s decision to enter into the race for mayor is rooted in his hatred of mandatory pandemic policies.  He knows others feel the same way as him, and believes that this is how he can defeat Ted, a proponent of those policies.  The movie later implies that Joe’s decision to face off against Ted is really about Joe’s long-simmering resentment of Ted’s treatment of Louise.  

According to Ted’s son Eric, Ted dumped Louise.  While basing Joe and Ted’s rivalry in their history with the same woman is understandable, the movie never explains what happened between Ted and Louise.  This makes Joe’s impulsive decision to campaign against Ted inscrutable.

Joe’s continued stubbornness over staying in the race is also incomprehensible.  Joe clearly loves Louise, but he also ignores her hostility towards his decision at every turn.   Joe wants to exact revenge upon Ted, but without knowing the reason(s) why, Joe comes off as thick-headed and self-destructive.  Without the necessary context, his actions don’t make sense.

A neo-western

This is my favorite aspect of the movie by far.  The way Joe and Ted’s relationship quickly devolves into a blood-feud is compelling and funny.  The scenes between Pascal’s Ted and Phoenix’s Joe crackle with their mutual animosity.  The inciting scene where Ted slaps Joe (twice!) is both shocking and hilarious.  Then, when Joe kills Ted and Eric, I figured that the movie would finally leave the strained social satire behind and become a Cohen Brothers-styled thriller.  Unfortunately, that was not the case.

After the murders, Aster positions Joe as a typical Cohen antihero, the man whose bad decisions have caused his world to spiral out of control.  Joe tries to take the heat off of himself by framing others, but Officer Butterfly Jimenez doggedly continues with his own investigation.  Unfortunately, just when the movie appears to be on the verge of a critical confrontation between Joe and Butterfly, the Ninja attired ANTIFA assassins arrive and bring chaos.

I actually didn’t mind that the ANTIFA antics made the preceding Joe/Butterfly events moot, because of the impressive way Aster stages the climactic gunfight.  However, Aster still has more satire to get out of his system, and the narrative downshifting involved to get there is whiplash-inducing.

Big tech fears

The only reason why Joe survives being stabbed in the head (twice!) is so that Aster can get back to his clumsy satire.  We see that Brian has become rich as a conservative influencer/podcaster, clearly a nod to Kyle Rittenhouse.  The movie then revisits the long-forgotten subplot involving the proposed data center.  In Aster’s opinion, the real tragedy of the pandemic is how we all lost sight of the rapid rise of big tech in our lives and our world.  While there is some truth to that, the point is trite and ignores the devastating impact the pandemic actually had on millions of lives.  Even worse, the movie gives the impression that nearly everything that takes place in the movie was pointless.  Or maybe the pointlessness of it all is the point.  Regardless, Eddington is too unformed and scattershot to be considered clever or insightful.

No Country for Old Men

I have to think that Aster was influenced by No Country for Old Men, in how masterfully he frames every gunshot for maximum effect.  For example, when Joe shoots Ted and Eric from a distance, we hear the shot a fraction of a second before we see (and hear) the impact.  Few filmmakers have the patience to let the effect of a gunshot play out in real time, which fills the space between the last one and the next one with anticipation and dread.

I also couldn’t avoid seeing parallels between Sheriff Joe’s machine gun rampage and Leo O’Bannon’s (Albert Finney) Tommy Gun response in Miller’s Crossing.

Was River Phoenix channeling Nicolas Cage’s H.I. McDunnough in Raising Arizona?