'Eddington' unmasked: Another slick, sick joke on American moviegoers



Director Ari Aster ’s "Eddington," which has inspired more heated discussion than it ticket sales, drops us unpleasantly back into an America at the peak of COVID-19 hysteria.

Our putative protagonist is Joe Cross, well-intentioned but beleaguered sheriff of the small desert outpost of Eddington, New Mexico.

Aster's previous films resolve with satanic forces claiming victory over well-meaning innocents just trying to grapple coherently with temptation and strife.

Already burdened with a psychologically fragile wife (Emma Stone) and a live-in, conspiracy-obsessed mother-in-law (Deirdre O'Connell), Cross must now keep the peace for a populace bitterly divided over masks, social distancing, and business closures, while facing down BLM riots. His downtime doomscrolling (remember the black squares on Instagram?) offers no relief.

Six-feet showdown

Cross himself is COVID-skeptical, to the say the least, which puts him at odds with Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), the kind of slimy, fake, media-savvy politico who could give California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) a run for his money.

Watching the first half of this movie in 2025 is enjoyably cathartic. Even the audience at the screening I saw — in an art-house theater in liberal Chicago — cringed at the movie's virtue-signaling adults and their brainwashed teens. The biggest laugh came when a father, having just been subjected to a rant from his son about "white abolition," blurts out, “Are you f***ing re****ed? YOU’RE white!”

I doubt I have to remind anyone that only a few years ago, these reactions would have been very different.

Truther or dare

From our vantage point in 2025, Cross seems to be the most levelheaded man in town, a flawed but decent public servant trying to make sense of a world gone mad. Finally, we think, a belated but nonetheless welcome jab at the liberal delusions that held sway in our country for the last decade.

That's when Aster pulls the rug out from under us. Our hero makes a series of choices that progress from foolhardy to downright evil, choices he ends up paying for in the most grotesque way possible. We, in turn, are punished for daring to identify with Cross. It's as if Aster wants to leave us not merely disillusioned but utterly humiliated.

Pascal's ostensible villain also falls away to reveal a much more formidable nemesis: the powerful corporation behind the development of Eddington's much-contested "SolidGoldMagikarp Data Center." These shadowy Big Tech overlords seem to validate every paranoid imagining of the online fringes, right and left: jetting in hooded, well-trained shock troops to carry out false-flag "Antifa" attacks and thwart populist dissent, distracting a divided and confused public from the very real threat they represent.

RELATED: 'Eddington': Portrait of COVID-era craziness wrings laughs from peak wokeness

Eric Charbonneau/A24 via Getty Images

Jabber jibber

Now … some critics may believe that this is the main message of the film. That the struggle is Them vs. Us. The real villains are the faceless "Eyes Wide Shut" cabal of world controllers who send out their minions to subvert the will of the people. “Smart viewers understand this,” the critics will say.

Well, I’m a smart viewer, and I don’t care about that. Maybe it is Them vs. Us in real life, but in Hollywood, and to Ari Aster, and to the audience in the theater on both sides of the aisle, the message of "Eddington" is clear: You can't win.

Aster's previous films, "Beau Is Afraid," "Midsommar," and "Hereditary," all resolve with satanic forces claiming victory over well-meaning innocents just trying to grapple coherently with temptation and strife. No one is held accountable for the perpetration of this violence; there is no justice or righteous retribution.

"Eddington" turns out to be just another variation of this story, this time using COVID instead of the supernatural to torture its characters. The question we should ask is who benefits from this nihilistic message?

Certainly not the audience. Joe Cross and the people of Eddington may be stuck where they are, helpless before the whims of their sadistic creator, but there's nothing keeping us in town. None of us would want to live in Aster World; maybe it's time we admitted it's not even a nice place to visit.

REVIEW: ‘Eddington’

True satire is, by its very nature, emotionally unsatisfying, because the theme of satire is that there are no solutions to the low and fallen condition of human nature. Satire gives you no one to root for; every genius is a fool, every fool is a knave, and there is no transcendence to be had.

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'Eddington': Portrait of COVID-era craziness wrings laughs from peak wokeness



Did anyone want to revisit America circa May 2020? BLM. COVID-19. Mask mandates. Peak cancel culture. Social distancing.

No, thank you.

A throwaway scene finds a white teen describing his privilege to his gobsmacked parents. Their reaction is guaranteed to draw howls.

Somehow director Ari Aster makes it an invitation worth considering.

2020 vision

The director behind “Hereditary,” “Midsommar,” and “Beau Is Afraid” jumps into that awful, no-good chapter in U.S. history with “Eddington.” Those expecting another progressive screed from La La Land will be happily disappointed.

Nor is Aster gunning for a MAGA cocktail party invite. His tale pulls nary a punch, belittling both hard-right conspiracists and BLM types.

What’s maddening is the lack of discipline in the film’s third act. If you thought 2020’s Summer of Love protests proved chaotic, perhaps “Eddington’s” finale feels appropriate.

Otherwise, a potentially great film loses its way.

Mask off

Joaquin Phoenix stars as Sheriff Joe Cross, an earnest lawman flustered by his state’s new mask mandates. It’s May 2020, and the country has already fallen for pandemic hysteria.

He tries to bring sanity to his New Mexico hamlet with few results. The locals have already adopted a mask-at-all-cost approach, including Eddington’s Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal).

Mostly.

That drives Joe to impulsively declare his candidacy for mayor, much to the chagrin of his troubled wife, Louise (Emma Stone). She spends her days ducking his carnal advances and devouring conspiracy theories along with her hard-charging Ma (Deirdre O’Connell).

Progressive Mad Libs

Meanwhile, the death of George Floyd sparks sympathetic protests across Eddington, straining the town’s wafer-thin resources. It’s neighbor against neighbor, and some of the young protesters barely know what they’re shouting about.

White privilege. Colonization. Racist cops. It’s a Mad Libs dash through progressive slogans, and it’s even sillier than what we remembered. The protests are a blindingly white affair, with BLM sympathizers torn between acknowledging their privilege and barking land acknowledgements.

One teen wants to get lucky, so he Googles “Angela Davis” just to break the ice with a pretty protester.

We can laugh about it now, but it wasn’t funny at the time. And sadly, remnants of that thinking refuse to slink away.

Aster isn’t sugarcoating far-left absurdism, although his hard-right conspiracies feel too cartoonish. The writer/director’s sense of editorial balance is shocking and smart. It’s a culture war movie that doesn’t look or sound like one.

RELATED: New horror movie 'Midsommar' makes a clearer call for Christianity to save the culture than many churches do

Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

Too soon?

The director leans into TikTok videos, YouTube confessionals, and cancel culture attacks — 2020 distractions that kept our attention during lockdowns.

The only thing missing? Netflix’s “Tiger King” series.

Sheriff Joe wants to have it both ways. He’s disgusted by residents trying to capture him in an unflattering light on their smartphones. He still turns to his phone to record campaign videos.

His political instincts, or lack thereof, are the film’s funniest running gags.

Aster’s setup is bracing and uncomfortable. Is it too soon to dissect this societal breakdown? The answer quickly becomes “no,” especially given how much we’ve learned about COVID-19, vaccines, and BLM-style activism since then.

Hackneyed slogans

“Eddington” isn’t a traditional comedy, but its satirical swipes leave a mark. A throwaway scene finds a white teen describing his privilege to his gobsmacked parents. Their reaction is guaranteed to draw howls.

Man, it feels good to laugh at that.

Eddington teens want to do something, anything, other than stay locked in their homes. So they join BLM and recite hackneyed slogans without actually understanding what they mean.

They look miserable.

The overstuffed story includes Austin Butler as an oily conspiracy theorist (is there any other kind?), a plot thread that adds a few chuckles to the story. Butler is a charismatic presence, but he’s not fully unleashed.

Laugh riot

Aster never knows how to leave well enough alone — his 2019 misfire “Midsommar” felt longer than the Summer Olympics. That means “Eddington” overstays its welcome by at least 20 minutes (the film is just shy of two-and-a-half hours long).

The film takes a violent turn mid-movie but lacks the urgency of the best screen thrillers. Instead, we watch a key character scramble for his life while we wonder what, exactly, is happening on screen.

Little of it makes sense, and the film’s coal black humor takes a knee.

Phoenix gets the meatiest role as a troubled sheriff. Poor Joe is earnest but overwhelmed, trying to process our 24/7 digital age without much luck. Pascal’s mayor should have our sympathy, from his pro-masking stances to having “he/him” on his Zoom profile.

Overdue relief

That’s how Hollywood movies work in 2025 ... right?

Instead, the actor makes sure to show his character’s smarmy side, and Aster refuses to deify a Hispanic leader.

“Eddington” is neither a lecture nor a cautionary tale. Aster serves up no solutions, only the potential for more misery. We already lived through the worst of what’s seen on screen, and laughing at it now offers a delicious, overdue sense of relief following those over-reactions.

We wouldn’t do that again. Would we?

It’s why the final, chaotic moments prove so dispiriting. “Eddington” eventually loses its way, and a bitter coda puts an exclamation point on that fact.

It’s high past time Hollywood grappled with the worst year in recent memory. Aster’s willingness to call out all sides makes "Eddington" a bracing, almost necessary watch.