In recent memory, there’s no point in time that probably changed our lives drastically in the same way that 2020 had done. The COVID-19 pandemic locked down many cities and kept us confined to our homes, awaiting the day when a vaccine would be ready to guarantee safe passage to meet up with our friends once again. For Ari Aster, this is the perfect background to set a dark absurdist comedy about the many directions where the United States has turned politically, as this pandemic gave way to another form of political discourse taking place online. It’s not hard to imagine that a movie like Eddington would ruffle the feathers of many on both sides of the political spectrum, but I think that’s also why it might be a fascinating case study. Given where Ari Aster has chosen to take his career after starting out with horror films, Eddington feels like the embodiment of what’s always been within his system, and wanted to get out for a long time.
Being set during the peak period of the COVID-19 pandemic, Eddington is a movie set in the titular town, which looks like any other in New Mexico. The incumbent mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), is a neoliberal figurehead running for re-election. Going up against is the conservative-minded police sheriff, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), who never wears masks despite the government mandate as he believes it violates his freedom of choice. As this mayoral election is going underway, tensions only find themselves growing as the political polarization during this time only grows stronger. There’s a greater resonance coming in knowing that Donald Trump was the President of the United States at the time when the film was set, but given how the 2024 election had turned out, it may just hit harder. Yet, it’s clear that Ari Aster is taking this as an opportunity to confront the root of where the disillusionment within such a system can form, especially within the United States.
It’s no surprise that a movie like Eddington will divide people. But it might also be the first time that someone has properly captured how the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic has turned into its own political battleground. When people have no other option but to doomscroll through social media as political posts are shared with both leanings emphasized, Eddington feels like the perfect portrait of the United States. Adding to the fact that Ari Aster is working with a genre of film that might also be associated with America’s own mythmaking, we’re seeing what very well may be Aster’s vision of the present day making its own “American fable.” People are living through this political division today, and an increasingly authoritarian right-wing president might only exacerbate things further, especially as Aster is skewering the performative politics of neoliberal politicians that give right-wing figureheads a bigger platform.
To assume Eddington is a centrist movie would be to misunderstand the film entirely. This is not a film that seeks to say “both sides are the same,” but it’s a movie that tries to make sense of how this extreme political division would be exacerbated as public health is on the line. Of course, we’re treated to seeing the liberal mayor of Eddington remind people to obey mask mandates, as the conservative Joe Cross constantly refuses. But this dichotomy is only fuelled by the fact that one’s own descent into the more conspiratorial side of the American right is one that is so deeply tragic for Aster. And yet, given the background where he lives, together with a conspiracy theory-obsessed mother and a troubled wife, it seems like it would only be natural that this is the path he would end up taking.
But that’s also what makes Eddington into the perfect portrait of our times, for better or worse. From how Aster nails down the performative politics of the supposedly liberal-minded politicians (perhaps more fittingly lining up with neoliberalism) but also the reactionary aspects of conservative citizens, it’s all very funny. It’s very funny, because Aster knows that there’s no real safe zone inside a town whose people are ready to set the spark. For all the performance that we may see in the present-day political sphere, Eddington nails how this uncertainty about where America would go if we let this paranoia define our worldview. As such, Aster is also playing up the western genre’s conventions to a tee, but he’s also trying to reckon with how we deal with a crisis where one contribution might seem too small. Sometimes, you can’t help but laugh at it as it’s all happening.
Not to say that Eddington is a film with any of the answers we are looking for in the present, because that’s not what Aster aims for. Instead, when we see the absurdities made more evident through a world looking like our own, we’re put in a spot where we must challenge even our perceptions of the world. To say that Ari Aster is making a film to say “both sides are bad” would be a harmful misreading of his intentions. Instead, it’s a movie all about the brokenness of America as a nation, and Aster holds a mirror to the country in a manner almost like Todd Solondz would. This great dissonance would be enough to make the film very funny, but perhaps that’s also where one can find a means to confront the notion of the United States as being “the greatest nation on Earth.”
Watch the trailer right here.
All images via A24.
Directed by Ari Aster
Screenplay by Ari Aster
Produced by Lars Knudsen, Ari Aster, Ann Ruark
Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Austin Butler, Emma Stone
Premiere Date: May 16, 2025
Running Time: 149 minutes
Cinema from the Spectrum 
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