TMS Movie Review: Eddington
(A24)
WARNING: This review includes spoilers
I miss enjoying summer movie season. I miss enjoying new movies with one of my longtime favorite actors [Joaquin Phoenix]. I miss when it was 2018-19 and Ari Aster was one of the most exciting new filmmakers to come out of the indie/arthouse scene. Why I was fated to be underwhelmed with so many movies released in 2025 remains a mystery to me currently, but it really has been a baffling viewing experience the past two months. Although regarding Aster’s new film, Eddington, I went in with already low expectations after the major disappointment of his last movie, Beau is Afraid (2023); so I can’t really say I was misled this time. I got pretty much exactly what I thought I would get from a talented director who wants to make full use of his blank checks from A24.
With Eddington, I wanted to give Aster the benefit of the doubt that Beau was just his “one for them, one for me,” and his next project would be a bit more accessible to general viewers like his horror hits Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019). But as soon as I found out the story was set in a fictional, tiny town in New Mexico during the global lockdown of 2020, I knew Aster’s genre days weren’t coming back soon. Phoenix plays a simpleton, Joe Cross, who is sheriff of Eddington and feels compelled to run for mayor because he doesn’t agree with the facemask state mandates. Emma Stone co-stars as his vulnerable wife, Louise, with past trauma who gets sucked into a cult-like anti-trafficking organization and is swayed by their charismatic leader, Vernon (Austin Butler). Dierdre O’Connell appears as Louise’s mother, a conspiracy theorist holding a grudge against both Joe and Louise’s ex, the current, liberal friendly mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), who is running for re-election.
(A24)
There’s a side plot of Ted’s son, Eric (Matt Gomez Hidaka) and his friend Brian (Cameron Mann), pretending to be ‘woke’ to impress a pretty girl, Sarah (Amélie Hoeferle), who is radically political. The mayor campaigns include sponsorships from a tech company based right outside Eddington, terrorists masquerading as ANTIFA to show up when BLM protests hit the streets, Vernon is obviously a grifter who might not even be a real victim of abuse like the narrative he’s built his following on, etc.
This is clearly a polarizing movie that is going to divide audiences. But most of all, it reveals Ari Aster is a typical elder millennial who was raised on neoliberal politics of the Y2K era and hasn’t evolved since then. There is an obnoxious, holier-than-thou tone running through Eddington that feels influenced by past exposure to subjects like “South Park,” Mike Judge and Bill Maher. Every single character comes off as a cliché joke, from Joe and his fellow dumb cops refusing to be considerate to people who take the pandemic seriously to the supposed progressive young people who aren’t even wearing their masks correctly. It’s so on the nose that it goes from being satire in the first act to almost endorsing what it’s mocking in the second act to suddenly turning dystopian in the third act. Political and social commentary that becomes the usual Aster flair with a badly choreographed gun fight and predictably cynical conclusion for Joe. It’s only been five years since COVID broke through, and the movie somehow feels both too soon and already dated. I really wish Stone wasn’t wasted so much here, not only because she’s a good, versatile actress; but because she has the most potentially interestingly arc with a relevant subject should be highlighted more publicly and instead is pushed aside for Joe’s plot. I loved Hereditary, I love Joaquin, I love Emma. I really did not love Eddington.