by Elisa Giudici
In Eddington, Ari Aster brings his signature excesses and flaws, yet, as always, these are interwoven with genuine strokes of genius, his remarkable visual talent, and a flair for the audacious. Eddington is set to be divisive, much like his previous film Beau is Afraid, though it's arguably more focused and sharp, albeit still far from perfect.
The very fabric of Eddington makes it incendiary, divisive, and ultimately, a tough nut to crack. Set in the fictional New Mexico town of its title, it's an uneven but admirable attempt to take a genre deeply rooted in the past -- the Watern -- and use its tropes and language to narrate our present. Naturally then we get the classic standoff as well as reaking shop sign swinging in a desert landscape. The shop is actually a gun store, from which the protagonist will emerge armed with both an automatic rifle and a smartphone. Because today, vigilantes and criminals alike carry a lens ready to film themselves or to be pointed in others' faces, like a weapon...
Eddington centers on Joaquin Phoenix as Joe Cross, a man desperately seeking external validation but finding only continuous anxiety in his emotionally and physically sterile marriage to Louisa (Emma Stone). She is a fragile creature, dancing around an ill-defined trauma, speaking of herself in the third person when stressed, and creating strange dolls and portraits as her artistic career. A fleeting affair from 20 years prior with Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) sours their relationship, pushing Joe to make a bold move: he'll run against Ted for mayor. Looming over the town is the specter of a giant data center threatening to deplete its water resources.
Joaquin Phoenix is indeed the perfect avatar for Ari Aster's cinematic obsessions and neuroses; one almost senses his willingness to undergo a physical and emotional tour de force. As in Beau is Afraid, this will culminate in a castrating yet reassuring relationship with a neurotic, despotic maternal figure. Unfortunately, like its predecessor, Eddington often feels like an unfulfilled version of the vibrant satire it aims to be. This is partly because Aster seems unable to trim any of the lengthy, masterfully shot night sequences by Darius Khondji. A more robust selection of what works (the surreal dramatic crescendo to Katy Perry's "Firework") and what doesn’t (much of the final shootout) would have resulted in a leaner, stronger film.
Aster makes another misstep by leaning too heavily into Phoenix's one-man show. This easily fits Aster's needs, but leaves a stellar supporting cast with very little to do. Pedro Pascal is underutilized, Emma Stone deserves her own movie, and Austin Butler is little more than a glorified cameo, though we glimpse his character's potential. In short, Aster struggles to prioritize elements in his tale of an era where individualism has morphed into an absolute inability to connect with others, into a need to communicate via webcam, essentially talking to and with oneself.
Eddington is less navel-gazing than Beau is Afraid and bravely tackles the challenging task of depicting a present that, deep down, no one truly likes. With its vertical videos, reflections on constantly scrolling phone screens, and that social media-speak which, like a hemorrhage, bleeds into reality (evident in both the more Trump-esque characters, whose words you can almost hear typed in all caps, and the progressive front, caught in an almost hysterical echo of the Black Lives Matter era), Eddington brings our social media-saturated daily life to the screen. It's not always pleasant to see it reflected. In this era in which auteur cinema struggles to reflect on contemporary life, Aster delivers one of the first films to attempt to focus on the emotional and dialectical scars of the pandemic.
Ari Aster photographs this reality, sometimes with aesthetically and formally brilliant solutions that are, however, banal in content. He doesn't find a solution; rather, he struggles significantly even to show all the elements of the complex equation of a post-truth present, where objective truth itself might be COVID's first casualty, leaving us more tired, angry, and uncertain, yet desperate to project unshakeable certainties. Eddington is shaky because it offers no conclusions or answers; it's an "insta-movie" of sorts. But considering how many of his directing peers shy away from confronting the contemporary, even while acknowledging that Eddington is far from successful, it’s hard to truly fault Aster or not admire his courage.