Eddington (2025) Dir: Ari Aster

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Ari Aster is best known for his superb and intense horror films; 'Hereditary' and 'Midsommar', both of which are modern classics of the genre. But his third film; 'Beau Is Afraid' divided audiences greatly, and has largely been forgotten since it came out in 2023. Aster's 2025 effort looked to be an intriguing if slightly unusual film, being set during the Covid-19 pandemic - something most forms of media tend to steer away from. I wasn't interested enough to go to the theatre for this one, but I did decide to watch it once it arrived on streaming.

Unfortunately, the first thing I noticed about the film was its horrible sound design. The music was far too loud compared to the dialogue, which made for a jarring and uncomfortable viewing experience. The film looked good - I had no expectations of otherwise, having seen some Aster's other work - I found some of the framing particularly noteworthy and effective. I also really liked how the camera was positioned around the characters - particularly during one action sequence, which felt very visceral.

The film tried so hard to hold the mirror up to society, especially during the extremely charged and turbulent period which was the pandemic era, and yet, I found that it had almost nothing interesting to say about any of it. The film suffered greatly from the terminal illness of thinking it was smarter than not only its direct audience, but everyone in the world. Its holier than thou attitude stunk out the joint, and left me more bemused than engaged.

It was also as conspicuous for what it didn't say as much as it was for what it did. For a film which seemed intent in calling everyone thick, it refrained from apportioning any of the blame to the so-called 'MAGA-sphere' and its substantial impact upon American society and politics at the time. Instead, the film focused far more on framing young people as dumb for standing up for human rights and for standing against police brutality.

The film may have struck me the wrong way, but one thing that didn't was Joaquin Phoenix's performance, which was excellent. He thrives on weird and awkward characters, and that certainly served him well in this role as well. He provided a very memorable performance, which was comfortably the best in the film, regardless of the quality of the film's overall writing. Sometimes I wonder how well Phoenix could do with more conventional roles, but if he keeps giving performances like these in the odd ones, I won't complain.

The best supporting performances came from Deirdre O'Connell and Pedro Pascal, who each played their roles pretty much perfectly. I am a big fan of Pascal's facial expressions, when it comes to roles like these, and I found him to be more than competent once again. Meanwhile, O'Connell excelled with her character's unnerved, unstable psyche, which came across as very believable. Other performances worth noting, albeit to a smaller degree, were that of Emma Stone, Michael Ward, and Austin Butler.

Overall, I have come to the conclusion that this was not a very good film. The more I've thought about it, the less I've liked it. Yes, it succeeds in making its audience uncomfortable, but it fails to provide any meaningful message along with it, ultimately making it feel like pointless antagonism. This feels like the film version of those so-called edgy comedians, whose soul intent is to upset or annoy people and call it comedy. This was, to my mind, an interesting, but ultimately unsuccessful experiment, which really could have been so much better, if only it had anything remotely interesting to say.