After rolling out his horror duology of Hereditary and Midsommar Ari Aster has been on a more experimental bend. His third feature, 2023’s Beau is Afraid, felt so deeply personal it was difficult to parse, let alone relate to. But all three of his movies have felt wholly unique and without compromise. His most recent entry certainly delivers on a lack of compromise, if not always to perfection.

Eddington is about a small town in New Mexico at the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Opening in April of 2020, the film dutifully tracks the beats of that summer as they unfold in a town trying to rationalize them. As the year progresses friends and neighbros wind up at each other’s throats, unable to have decorum or decency in their discussion around heated political matters. The film is primarily centered around an election for town mayor, the more liberally minded incumbent Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) versus the mask denying town lawman Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix).

The movie has already given itself a difficult task, and it probably navigates these waters as capably as it could. It doesn’t make Joe Cross look insane, and it tries to develop sympathy for both sides of the arguments. But as it does that it muddies its messaging as the plot becomes more and more absurdist. Sheriff Joe has what seem to be sound and reasonable criticisms to make of Mayor Garcia. The fact that Garcia is in deep with a coporation that wants to build a data center on the outskirts of town that will suck up water and other natural resources away from the town itself is chief among them.

But in an effort to play both sides for most of the film it takes a good amount of squinting to figure out what the movie’s politics even are. It feels like in order to be palatable the film is scared to take a side, and in the end it lands somewhere closer to a typical and cynical “it’s everyone’s fault” which is about as much of a non answer as a movie could posit. A take that mirrors the sarcastic and sardonic views of the mid 90s more so than a cohesive take down of either side of the debate. It’s frustrating because at many points Eddington feels like it wants to say something big. Most of the heavy hits land when the film is at it’s funniest, and it’s often being funny, before slipping back into a doom obsessed, holier than thou smart aleck voice. The film likely would’ve been able to land its hits better if it had been an out and out farce rather than the broody drama we’re left with.

The film looks amazing, shot in a style familiar to anyone that’s seen a John Ford Western, the rolling hills of New Mexico evoke the bountiful frontier that the tech companies are so eager to sap. A classical score put together by Daniel Pemberton pushes those stirring feelings further, reminding us of scorpions, spurs, and saloons. Alongside Phoenix and Pascal a plethora of movie stars join the cast, Emma Stone playing the wife of Joe Cross and Austin Butler coming in as an internet conspiracy theorist. It’s all stuff that sounds like it could potentially work cohesively, and while the ride in the covered wagon is a bumpy one, it does eventually land on a message.

The film takes its time in building its case and as it lures you down its path over the course of its 149 minute runtime. Having it under the backdrop of the novel coronavirus is a choice that almost feels dated at this point. It is both too soon to cover this time period, and so far back that it’s unworthy of discussion. There are bigger concerns in 2025 than vaccine deniers and discourse surrounding masks. The film points out the irony of wealthy white students protesting the murder of George Floyd, while also showing brutal police violence against indigenous people. Highlighting this false equivalence by portraying them as similar when they are obviously not at all. As stated the ending does land on a side eventually, but it’s difficult to make out in the distance as the New Mexican sun is setting. And you feel every second of that runtime. While it’s good to see original and experimental films being made by real auteurs, I left the theater feeling a little frustrated by the dust up.

3/5