‘Eddington’ review: Communication breakdown

Ari Aster goes back to one of the most turbulent times in American history and shows the fools who fanned the flames in Eddington.

There’s a famous line from Cool Hand Luke that goes, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” Though written in the ’60s for a movie that takes place in the ’50s, it’s more fitting than ever in the 2020s. Topics as complex as immigration or as innocuous as the plot of Wicked can morph into rage-fueled shouting matches that turn friends and families against each other. And that’s just what happens in-person; the immediacy and lack of filter on social media have amplified those discussions to be even less informed and more harmful. Despite being more connected, we’re also more divided than ever before.

There are two lines in Eddington, the latest from writer/director Ari Aster, that show the effects of this communication breakdown. One is said by an aimless drifter, yelling and coughing his way through the New Mexico town while being either looked down upon or outright ignored. With no one listening or helping him, he breaks into a bar swigging bottle after bottle before mumbling, “You poison me, I poison you.”

The other is said by Town Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) after making a shocking allegation against Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) on camera in an attempt to smear his re-election campaign. Despite his wife Louise (Emma Stone) begging him not to play that card and with little detailed evidence to back it up, Joe drops the venomous bomb for no other reason than to appear more wholesome and righteous than Ted. When given one more chance to take a moment, rethink the statement, and delete the video, Joe gives a response that’s incredibly chilling for how prevalent it is in modern society: “Don’t make me think, just post it.”

A tangled web we weave.

It’s May 2020, two months after the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world. Mask restrictions are in place, the wrongful death of George Floyd is bringing race relations to a boiling point, and everyone is on Facebook trying to figure out what caused this crisis. The city of Eddington, New Mexico is no exception. Sheriff Joe (Phoenix) is running for mayor on vague promises to “free each other’s hearts” and not turning Eddington into “Facebook, NM.” Mayor Ted (Pascal) is trying to get approval for a tech company to build an environmentally-damaging, but highly profitable (for him) data center on vacant land.

Louise (Stone) is struggling to stay positive despite her conspiracy-theorist mom (Deirdre O’Connell) constantly spamming her with random articles. Local teen Brian (Cameron Mann) wants to impress Sarah (Amélie Hoeferle) by starting a half-hearted social justice crusade. Even Sheriff Joe’s deputies (Luke Grimes and Micheal Ward) are struggling to grasp the situation surrounding them.

That description just scratches the surface of Eddington and what Aster is trying to talk about. Throughout its 148-minute runtime, Eddington fills its barren desert with hints of political corruption, the inexplicable stench of QAnon, the rise (and misunderstanding) of Black Lives Matter, disrespect of indigenous land, cult leaders, TikTok, and Kyle Rittenhouse. Aster stirs all of those ingredients in his typical awkward, confrontational brew with slow spins at first before carefully swishing it around faster and faster.

Watching Eddington throw these real-world story elements together more and more intensely is like watching The Bear hustle dishes out of the kitchen in under five minutes. Aster doesn’t hit the audience over the head with his political views. Nor does he make a blanket statement on these issues  to make way for the plot (see Civil War). Whatever the origins of those elements are, good or bad, Aster’s point is that they can be easily corrupted with the wrong communication.

The biggest plot twist in all the madness is how Aster manages to stick the landing. Eddington has solid pacing that lets the writer/director carefully move characters and plot lines around each other before they line-up to get knocked down in the movie’s wild finale. It’s even more impressive how almost every character here is compelling. Especially considering that, despite touches of empathy, Aster doesn’t have one entirely decent human being running around.

Whether it’s Sheriff Joe’s naivety turning him pathetic or Brian’s teenage crush revealing how low he’ll stoop to look righteous, it gets more and more funny to watch how flawed these folks are. Even Deputy Michael (Ward), who looks very conflicted as a black man in a cop uniform trying to break up a BLM protest, has to nervously explain how his past relationship with Sarah occurred right around (but apparently not after) she turned 18. Even if you cringe at how nasty these people are, you’ll get a few laughs out of how everyone in Eddington keeps making the worst possible choice.

What we leave behind.

Not every element and character gets a fully fleshed-out arc. Louise and her mother start as stand-ins for those with way too much laptop time and not enough media literacy. They’re eventually sucked-in by a QAnon-esque cult before Louise disappears from the rest of the flick. It’s an aspect that could easily be its own movie talking about how online conspiracy theories can ruin families and take advantage of mistreated people. Sadly, Eddington doesn’t have time to dig into it and makes it just another agitator in Sheriff Joe’s descent into depravity. Even Austin Butler, who does a fine job playing the charming but vague Manson-like leader, has about two scenes in the whole movie.

Eddington stuffs itself with story, perhaps too much. That abundance of story means a more stripped-down approach on technical details. Not that Aster was always using CGI or flashy camera tricks in his career, but Eddington does feel like a step backwards from the style risks he took with his last feature, Beau Is Afraid. The town looks as barren and dry as the desert thanks to cinematographer Darius Khondji (Se7en, Mickey 17), while the score from The Haxan Cloak (Midsommar) and Daniel Pemberton (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse) is surprisingly sparse. The score is so unremarkable that the best music used in Eddington is Katy Perry’s “Firework,” of all things. Aster is still exceptional at framing and blocking, while also finding getting quite a lot of mileage turning smartphones into a weapon more threatening than any gun.

Think of your neighbors.

With a cast this big getting so much runtime to work with, there’s a chance for everyone to stand out. Surprisingly, it’s the non A-listers who make Eddington as colorful (and bleak) as it is. Ward (Empire of Light) is particularly impressive as Deputy Michael who may be the closest thing to a decent person (dating history aside) slowly realizing he’s seen more as a tool than a person. Mann and Hoeferle do fine work as the Gen Z stand-ins who see social justice as a means of showing superiority. The secret weapon in the cast might be O’Connell, who creates a consistently haunting presence throughout Sheriff Joe’s journey by constantly talking while Joe and Louise try to navigate their lives. She makes you want to rewatch the movie with subtitles just to see if there are any specific clues in her lines.

As for those A-listers, they slide themselves into the background of Aster’s decrepit playground. Pascal feels like he’s sleepwalking through this with nothing more than a stressed face and a few spotty outbursts to define him. Stone’s character development turns into an afterthought until a gut punch in the movie’s finale. But there is indeed a star in this picture and in his second collaboration with Aster, Phoenix finds another director that knows how to harness his unpredictable energy best. As Aster’s depiction of the modern American cowboy, Phoenix’s nervous aura and garbled delivery fits perfectly with Sheriff Joe’s crushing stresses and complete lack of self-awareness. Even when the embattled Joe is at his most detestable, Phoenix keeps a cry for help in his eyes to make the audience whimper on his behalf.

The bottom line.

While not as technically ambitious as his last movie, Eddington is Aster’s most daring movie from a storytelling perspective that he mostly pulls off. The writer/director knows how to weave a whole lot of heavy topics together into a journey that’ll make you laugh as much as it makes you wince. He also knows how to keep pulling the rug out from the audience at just the right time without forgetting the themes at the movie’s core. It might seem hard to follow Eddington at first, what with everyone shouting over each other and mumbling to themselves. But that’s part of Aster’s point: no one is talking or listening to each other on the same level. Without any informed connection, we might as well be wandering alone in the desert.

Eddington is now playing in theaters everywhere. Watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of A24. Read more articles by Jon Winkler here.