EDDINGTON
****
Directed by Ari Aster.
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler.
Drama, US, 148 minutes, Certificate 15.
Released in UK cinemas on 22nd August by Universal Pictures International
2020, what a time to be alive! Remember when the whole world was brought to a halt by a deadly pandemic that also seemed to unleash a wave of conspiracy theories, each one more bizarre than the last, riots in the streets of America against murdering policemen and a president who recommended injecting bleach into your veins to cure Covid? Just a few highlights from a year that seems so distant now with all of its precautions, guidelines, lockdowns and a James Bond film that kept getting its release date pushed back further and further then didn’t turn out to be that good anyway.
Ari Aster certainly remembers and there seems to be a gleeful and wicked spirit to him bringing it all back to the forefront of our minds in the satirical, confrontational and wickedly entertaining EDDINGTON. While moving further and further away from the genre where he immediately made his name with HEREDITARY and MIDSOMMAR, this blackly comic neo-western still threatens to tip over into something else entirely with its dark view of humanity in freefall and the bloody violent chaos that is unleashed as a result.
Collaborating once more with Joaquin Phoenix after their nightmare epic BEAU IS AFRAID, Aster’s titular New Mexico small town is the setting for a showdown between sheriff Joe Cross and mayor Ted Garcia. Set in May of that tumultuous year Joe drives around the empty streets of his deserted town stubbornly refusing to wear a mask, claiming it could kill him because of his asthma. The animosity between Joe and Ted reaches a peak when Joe makes the foolhardy decision to run for mayor. It's a decision that sends his life into freefall; his depressed wife, played by Emma Stone, falls under the sway of a newly arrived cult leader, while the murder of George Floyd triggers a series of protests within the small town that Joe is simply unprepared for.
An unsubtle film that deals with the unsubtle ways in which many people responded to the overwhelming events of the time, Aster takes aim at both sides of the political divide here. What Aster seems to be looking at is the pervasive online nature of the time. Phone screens and laptop screens share the frame with the characters, flashing headlines that claim the sinking of the Titanic was an inside job and promise to tell the truth of hydroxychloroquine and what ANTIFA are really up to. Quarantine rules are repeatedly broken by those on both sides of the divide and BLM protestors are more concerned with filming themselves for Instagram and Tik Tok and other selfish reasons. This is a blackly comic, and tricky, portrait of a society in freefall mainly populated by fools, charlatans and madmen that sadly seems just as relevant once more. “We need to free each other’s hearts.” Joe pleads with heartfelt sincerity at the outset of his ill-advised and poorly thought out campaign, but either no-one can hear him over the din of their own phones or no-one wants to listen.
Like his debut film, there is a plot turn that comes out of nowhere and sends the film into a whole other direction that is completely different than expected. This is a cynical vision and Aster seems to delight in it, offering a viewpoint that suggests that chaos rules over everything now. Such a nihilistic opinion however, somehow results in Aster's most enjoyable film yet. A dark comic streak has been apparent in his work since MIDSOMMAR and it comes out in full here, especially in the films coda that nobody wants to free anything for anyone else. Ambitious as the film is, it does sometimes stumble. The plotline involving Joe's wife falling under the sway of a cult leader played by Austin Butler seems to have been pared to the bone for instance. While music fans with an aversion to Katy Perry may take offense at the inclusion of one song that may also be an indication of Aster’s disdain for people in general.
Phoenix's performance of a man believing he's doing the right thing and getting in over his head in an unbelievable way is also one of his funniest performances in a while. His disbelief and confusion at the spiralling events of violence may mirror the audience's feelings, especially with the sharp turn it takes into something completely different than what has come before. For those tuned into the films dark and cynical wavelength however EDDINGTON could well be one of the defining films of the online age and all the divisions it has sown.
Iain MacLeod