EDDINGTON (2025)

Not too long ago, the cinematic climate was hit with a bombshell, one whose content equated to the elements that comprise the genre of horror, affecting general audiences and film aficionados alike with its molasses-like dread and tension born from past and present familial trauma and the machinations of the occult. Much like bombs used throughout history, this bomb had a name: Hereditary (2018). And its creator was Ari Aster; an American filmmaker whose medium-specific ingenuity made an impact that altered the trajectory of films within the horror genre.

Hereditary was a relatable experience for many indulgers of cinema, myself included. The trauma it displays is akin to a hot-iron brand, leaving a mark on those it affects, but without the necessary precautions to prevent infection or other complications. Despite wanting to escape from it, one simply can’t, even when its perpetrator(s) lie under sod. This unfortunate truism is a defining element in Aster’s work, both from the past, such as his shorts and student film, The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011), and his future work.

Shortly after Hereditary’s release, Aster began work on his sophomore film, Midsommar (2019). His focus on familial trauma would continue within the horror genre—a superb choice for a filmmaker to explore, define, and showcase the strength of their visual and cinematic techniques. This time, the dynamics between the protagonist, her boyfriend, and his friends take centre stage, while elements of the horror genre serve to enhance these interactions. This approach elevates the themes of familial trauma, monogamic conflict, cultural disrespect, and self-growth.

Four years after his breakup operatic release, Aster would grace the world with his tertiary release, Beau is Afraid (2023)—a surrealist, introspective odyssey that’s also a soft remake of his short film, Beau (2011). Beau Is Afraid focuses on themes of motherhood, the complexities that exist within a mother-son relationship, and, once again, familial trauma; however, Aster delves deeper this time around to hone in on specific psychological outgrowths that are a result of the constant exposure to absurdity found in the blood-and-water chapter.

Beau Is Afraid was met with mixed results—an occurrence that still somewhat baffles me to this day. It’s Aster’s most ambitious contribution, showing an attempt to create something new genre-wise within the medium. Beau Is Afraid is akin to a genre kaleidoscope in that it interweaves elements of horror, surrealism, existentialism, psychology, expressionism, maximalism, and comedy together. While I can certainly understand if someone were to proclaim that the film felt “uneven,” I simply can’t get behind the collective disdain towards it. Beau Is Afraid contains some of the best filmmaking practices Aster has ever done, especially within the first hour.

Beau Is Afraid really impressed me and further kindled the fires of enthusiasm within my corporeal form regarding Aster’s future work. His creative ingenuity within this artistic medium reached an all-time high, reforming what was once the apex of his creativity to a level unforeseen by myself and many others. In some ways, Beau Is Afraid’s visual and cinematic direction served as a maturation of what was employed in Midsommar, so when the trailer dropped for his latest film, Eddington, my childlike fervour could not be contained.

To my surprise, Eddington shifts away from the surrealist, maximalist filmmaking approach used in Aster’s last film, and instead he aims to create a Western with modern-day sensibilities, and although its visual approach lacks that same chromatic allure that resided in both Midsommar and Beau Is Afraid, the profundity of Aster’s inventiveness would reside within this new screenplay.

To put it plainly, Eddington is a retrospective of the sociocultural, political, and, as a result, psychological ethos of America during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. Aster creates a cinematic microcosm—a fictional town in New Mexico called Eddington—that uses naturalised characterisations evocative of the attitude of many during the pandemic’s profound, nearly incomprehensible paradigm shift: a time when civilisation was on lockdown, consuming current events and conspiracies via YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and the like. The culmination of isolation, differing beliefs, and informal gluttony shattered the psychological stability of many, leading to aggressive conflicts among the populace. Their intense unconscious fervour varied widely, ranging from intrusive and obnoxious to hyper and unfiltered.

On one end of the political spectrum, residents of Eddington are against the enforcement of medical face masks and other forms of PPE and criticise those who enforce it or incorrectly wear them, like those who wear their face masks below their noses—a practice I’m sure many of you readers have run into before, as I have myself countless times; yet, when faced with virological absurdity, they quiver in fear, donning pedestrian camouflage to blend in amidst testing locations when they fear they’ve contracted COVID-19.

On the other end of the political spectrum, residents of Eddington are against those who refuse to comply with government regulations regarding the coronavirus epidemic and are willing to utilise hive-minded bullying tactics—even tactics pertaining to one’s physicality—to have them conform to social distancing and PPE usage; yet, when they’re amongst themselves, they congregate in social gatherings and disavow the same government regulations they adamantly promoted.

Eddington makes fun of both liberals and conservatives and how the practice of virtue signalling facilitates our need to strive for purpose, meaning, and understanding when faced with cold indifference. When this inability to accept one of the two truisms of life is combined with an influx of news flooding into our algorithm and social isolation, it leads to mass delusion. The American ethos of 2020 was one of dogmatic hypocrisy and an unconscious emotional deluge—it was maddening, abhorrent, sickening, and forever changed many facets of residents’ day-to-day.

I seldom enjoy dark, political, parodic commentaries, as they usually disregard the crux of the problematic subject being criticised and reduce it to mere aesthetics—a quick blast of flavour for people to witness and proclaim the project has an air of “awareness.” Take Bong Joon Ho’s Mickey 17 (2025) and James Gunn’s Superman (2025), for example. Both films have dark, political, parodic backdrops that are as shallow as a puddle of water after a light rainstorm; they never evolved past portraying their political commentary as aestheticism to completely seal the film’s microcosm.

Simply put, this approach towards allegorical writing is shallow—a cheap parlour trick of smoke and mirrors to conceal the filmmaker’s lack of literary prowess or their avaricious appetite, which makes the inclusion of such subject matter disingenuous. That being said, I didn’t feel that way about Eddington. Aster does an impeccable job replicating the carbon-based coma rants that permeated the era-specific ether. Dialogue feels incredibly natural, unlike other dark, political, parodic films that feel contrived, obtrusive, and tumultuous. It felt as though I was peering into a cinematic emulation of history within America. Even moments where I felt like elements of its commentary were becoming a bit repetitive still felt accurate because of how repetitive certain rhetoric was at the time.

The accuracy of Eddington’s humour had me laughing the layers of my Mediterranean rear end off and, in turn, coughing periodically from its intensity. What surprised me the most is that Eddington doesn’t sacrifice any amount of writing to make room for humour. It adheres nicely to its themes and the progression of its narrative. There were some jokes that didn’t land as well as others, and that was due to their cyclical use. For example, there is a cyclical joke where the youth of Eddington lecture Caucasian individuals from previous generations that the homes and businesses they own are on stolen land; however, jokes like this serve to facilitate the emulation Aster creates, so it isn’t that flagrant of an issue.

However, this dark, political parody is still a backdrop within the film, as Eddington is a character-driven narrative. Aster presents Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), the sheriff of Eddington and protagonist of the film, as the case study. Cross is manic, bitter, hostile, anxiety-ridden, pathetic, a manchild, and vile. These qualities of his worsen throughout the film and are directed towards those around him, whether ideological friend or foe. He’s indicative of humanity, as these discrepancies in his character, much like many during the pandemic of 2020, were accentuated by this huge paradigm shift and not caused by it. No, they’re more deeply rooted than whatever was brought upon by virological absurdity born from scientific negligence and worsened by demagogic rhetoric.

Cross makes the bold decision to become mayor of Eddington after an altercation that occurs at the local supermarket fairly early on in the film. At first, it seems as though Cross is running for political and empathetic reasons, yet in truth, he doesn’t run or participate in politics for the well-being of other people; he runs because of personal conflicts he has with the current mayor of Eddington, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), and by association, his own wife, Louise Cross (Emma Stone).

This personal conflict fuels the negative aspects of Cross’ personality on top of what the federal lockdown has done to Eddington and the rest of the country’s political climate. Eddington is a bit tense, yet still humorous. Aster constantly plays a fine balancing act of these juxtaposing emotions, and both the tension and hilarity increase as the film progresses. It’s paced like a Western film—slow, tense, and methodical—which makes its location all the more appropriate.

To aid in this slow, accumulating tension, Eddington marinates in the complexities of the era it’s emulating. There are a lot of moving parts that alter things within the film’s world, and despite them occurring outside our peripherals, we are able to find out about what occurs due to the town of Eddington being a rather small one. Its police department contains three employees, it presumably has one supermarket, everyone knows each other, and yet no matter what occurs in town, we eventually find out about it.

The film stews in this emulated essence for a while—approximately half the runtime—painting a picture composed of hues of hilarity, unconscious rage, racial tensions, and anxiety; however, at some point absurdity spawns from the fruits of jealousy, rage, and childlike energy. This shifts Eddington’s focus from a character-driven retrospective of 2020 to a crime thriller. Its emotional conveyance flips from hilarity with a little tension to immensely tense with a bit of humour wedged on the rim of the glass.

I thought the genre switch was jarring when I first saw Eddington. The film marinates in the era’s essence for so long that I became lost within it, trying to get a foothold on which direction things were going before I realised what the film was aiming for, but only after I recovered from having the rug pulled from under my feet. It was a stew of cinematic emulative hilarity and chaos and then underwent a metamorphosis into something more ambitious and cinematic, something akin to a violent cat-and-mouse chase, à la the Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men (2007).

What occurs is fantastical in nature: an adjudication of the politically corrupt as though they’re a pathogen in the bodily system of the country. Since seeing this film a few days ago, I’ve been mulling Aster’s direction of flipping the genre over to something juxtapositionary in my mind since it’s most certainly improved; however, I cannot be completely confident in saying it’s sensible at all.

It’s an intriguing direction for sure, as I’ve never seen a film like Eddington. It’s simultaneously genre appropriate and genre defiant. I could state that had Aster chosen to marinate a tad less in the era’s essence, the transfer of genres wouldn’t have felt so intrusively abrupt, but I can’t. I don’t think my level of uncertainty will wane until I see Eddington again; it most certainly calls for further viewings.

Eddington is quite unique, clever, and hilarious, yet mercurial and outright disturbing. It’s a piece of filmmaking that audiences have been wanting for a while now, in that they’ve expressed desires of wanting originality over recycled ideas and franchises. Yet, once again, it’s being met with mixed results. Aster is certainly an incredible filmmaker with an understanding of the medium that exceeds many within the current cinematic climate, but I’ve come to accept that not everyone is going to like his work.

That being said, while I certainly think Eddington is a fulfilling cinematic experience, it isn’t one that I felt really captivated by like I did with Aster’s previous three films. Eddington is a film that calls for repetitive viewings to fully appreciate, and this is due in part to the many issues, both big and small, within its microcosm that need to be reflected on from a few paces back. The pandemic was a unique time in history, and if there is one takeaway I have from this cinematic retrospective, it’s that its existence will allow audiences to reflect on the very attitudes that they adopted during its sociocultural, political, and psychological disorder.

USA • FINLAND | 2025 | 149 MINUTES | 1.85:1 | COLOUR | ENGLISH

Cast & Crew

writer & director: Ari Aster.
starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Michael Ward, Austin Butler & Emma Stone.