Eddington

What a mess of a movie. One thing this did so well was actually show the way how much politics divided people since the start of the pandemic. The way people became passionate about their beliefs and how they reacted to it was pretty spot on, unlike anything else that has been. But this still leans to one side by simply being given more than enough importance and center stage to stupidity as a normal belief system. Even with the aftereffects and hypocrisy being shown by both sides, the root of fundamental belief makes a difference, which, as fit for an American movie, this avoids addressing. Even without considering the political aspect, the narrative structure is a mess. Switching from rivalries, political tensions with satirical undertones, to gory shootouts, the movie swings hard, and at least it's weirdly interesting throughout.

Its thesis is clear. We're all hypocrites. How the old generation has a stick up their ***, too rigid to embrace meaningful change, while the younger generation-damned from birth by social screens, performs outrage on Instagram in hopes of sleeping with Sarah.

Ari Aster skewers each political perspective, which in turn makes up a large majority of unhappy letterboxd reviewers, ironically complementing the film's punchline. No matter where you stand, it's naive to believe stupidity is exclusive to one side.

All in all, it's a film less concerned with who's right and more obsessed with how dumb it all looks from a distance.

I can only tell this is gonna be a very polarising film, people are going to love the ambition from Aster or call it a convoluted mess.

Depending on your views during the 2020s will severely determined your outlook on this film. Are you able to laugh at the insanity or remain serious at the severity of events that transpired.

Eddington is ultimately a satire on the comedic ridiculousness and tumultuous times of the 2020's. Eddington in itself is the main character. It's a macrocosom of events that impacted the US but obviously ramps them up to 11.

I appreciate the craft and the film was at its best when it was reminiscent of the Coen's No Country For Old Men. The 2nd act elevated the implemented satire to a contemporary western crime thriller.

The film is hit or miss in its summary. I understand the message and themes but at some points the execution is lacking. I feel like it tried to juggle a lot of themes and messages. Maybe sticking to one or two would have made the film more tight and succinct.

This Movie is many things but not a good movie. Yes, that's how i will start my review. This movie has no specific genre, first it's a drama, then it became some dark comedy, then it's a crime thriller, then it's a effing war movie and at the last it's an unfinished revenge thriller. What the eff is this about! I don't know, i have no idea after watching this horrible thing.

So, what does dark comedy mean, exactly ... ?

"Eddington," which falls under that genre on the Internet Movie Database, isn't the first movie that's left me asking the question. It's just the most recent.

The film is also labeled a Contemporary Western, a concept easier to grasp.

Eddington is the name of a tiny, out-of-the-way New Mexico town, grappling - as the rest of the country was when the story opens in 2020 - with the outbreak of the Covid pandemic.

You can't get much more contemporary than that.

Written and directed by Ari Aster, who has developed a cult following for leading audiences into scary sometimes gross places, its cast is heavy with Oscar winners and nominees. Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Pablo Pascal, Dierdre O'Connell, Michael Ward and Austen Butler, for openers.

Phoenix plays Eddington's Sheriff Joe Cross, a sad-sack lawman who's got about as much as he can handle with his wife Louise (Stone) who doesn't love him ; her mother Dawn (O'Connell) whose favorite pastime is Googling conspiracy theories; and that Covid mask mandate that he's supposed to be enforcing.

Joe's got asthma, you see, which makes it hard for him to breathe whenever he tries to put the danged mask on.

Joe's not a political person, per se. The circumstances that lead him to run against incumbent Ted Garcia (Pascal) to become Eddington's mayor are more a matter of being pushed past his breaking point by one too many matters beyond his control.

There's the new AI data center that's been proposed for development that has local conservationists up in arms. There's the George Floyd killing in Minneapolis that's all over the news and has the town's teenage population rioting on Main Street. There's the loco crazy homeless guy, who always shows up to make matters worse. There are the rumors that the current mayor slept with Sheriff Joe's wife, before unceremoniously dumping her ... Aha, so maybe dark comedy is about trying to find the yuks in what Henry David Thoreau called "lives of quiet desperation." That was the way Thoreau described "the mass of men" in his 1854 masterpiece "Walden." No one has summed things up better in the almost two centuries since.

Or maybe dark comedy is more a matter of dystopian satire, trying to whistle our way past the graveyard of civilization.

Whatever it's called, writer-director Aster clearly has a lot on his mind before he lets the action onscreen devolve into a hail of unholy gunfire, explosions and chaos in the third act.

Considering that they're both running for mayor, it's noteworthy what horrible communicators Sheriff Joe and incumbent Ted Garcia are. Joe has a habit of speaking his mind before his mind's made up. Ted is way better in TV commercials than in actuality. Both guys reveal the absence of anything like actual confidence every time they open their mouths.

The real powers in their world are behind the scenes, creating that water-sucking, resource-depleting high-tech data center, or infiltrating high-minded political demonstrations with false flag mercenaries Like an old-fashioned - as opposed to contemporary - Western, "Eddington's" setting is as much a character as the characters are. The saloon, church and wooden sidewalks may now be replaced with convenience marts, an historic Indian museum and a very convenient gun and ammo store, but there's still the sense of flimsy storefronts standing lonesome vigils a long way from the hills on the horizon on those windswept plains.

Likewise, Sheriff Joe's iPhone isn't in the credits, but it play a role as important as any character in the story. "Eddington" may be the first work of art made of misinformation. Social media is where that misinformation comes to life, festers and spreads like fungus. There's nothing like smart technology for making people stupid. Once you create artificial intelligence, actual intelligence is a flimsy defense indeed.

When it comes to polarized idiocy, filmmaker Aster doesn't take sides. The self-styled high-minded liberals are as gullible to online fictions as your standard garden-variety bigot. Some of the film's funniest scenes come when the teen demonstrators protesting the George Floyd killings tie themselves in moral knots trying to deny their own class and privilege. Aster's script suggests that actual pedophiles may far outnumber figments of conspiracy theory imagination - and may not be limited to one political party or another.

"Eddington" may be a work of genius. That's a saving grace, considering that none of its characters are particularly likable, it's disquieting to sit through, and its so-called humor hardly lightens the mood as you exit the theater into the actual dystopia waiting outside.