Eddington, the fourth feature from Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau is Afraid), moves away somewhat from horror and the uncanny we've come to expect in his films, into a combination of a western and crime thriller that focuses in a very fraught few months in recent American history and the evils that men justify for themselves into doing.
Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), with his very apt name, is the Sheriff of a small town in New Mexico (population a little over 2000). It's only a few months into the lockdown period of the COVD pandemic, and Joe is making it clear to everyone that he has no respect for any health policies designed to keep him and his community safe. Irritated after refusing to mask inside the local grocery store, he makes a sudden and public decision to run for Mayor, again the incumbant, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal). Ted is well liked in the community, and is trying to bring in a new data centre to boost employment and business in the area, though maybe not always with respect for the arguably necessary bureaucracy. The two men clash as Joe begins to spiral, obsessed with his own need for control over everything his life touches.
The film begins strong, in that we immediately have a sense of what has happened before the moment we're with Joe in his truck, as he watches a video on how to convince his wife to have a baby, and he's adminoshed by the local Tribal police (whose land he is on) for not wearing a mask. Clearly this is not the first time this has happened and these cops are tired of asking; just as it isn't the first time that Joe has refused their request. This continues the next day at the supermarket, where Joe uses his position and privilege to override any safety concerns. The audience is immediately put on edge, not least because it's only been a few short years and we can all remember what those months were like, before we had vaccines.
This is where Aster leans into the 'western' in this multi-hyphenate genre film. If the western is about a free man, living by his own code, free of society's rules, in an open landscape, then Joe is a man, perhaps in that landscape, but he bears a responsibility to his fellow citizens (not least as their Sheriff); there are rules he is supposed to enforce, but it seems he does little to make his office effective; there are rules he needs to now follow, but he doesn't want to, and there is nowhere he could go to do so, nor does it seem that he wants to. He wants to live by his own code, free of societal responsibility, and impose that on everyone around him. It's a good way to show how the values of the west, how they were traditionally showcased in the western genre, simply cannot be applied in today's world.
But what does pervade today's world, certainly in Western cultures, is the effects of social media and the internet to spread information, too often the wrong kind. Joe's wife Louise (Emma Stone), one of the few sympathetic characters, has suffered serious trauma in childhood that has made both her, and her mother Dawn (Deirdre O'Connell), susceptible to conspiracy theories, especially one espoused by the charismatic Vernon Jefferson Peak (Austin Butler). Joe seems only semi-attuned to what his wife is going through, and while he believes himself immune, it's only that he think the conspiracy theories that he believes are true, whereas what others believe are wrong.
That social media and conspiracies become the bridge between the western-focused first half, and the crime thriller second half. It comes with quite a shocking action, though perhaps not a surprising one. At this point, what had been a slow-paced build of tension becomes a story hurtling at breakneck speed towards a violent end. If Joe was skeptical before, he's downright paranoid now, though that paranoia comes from a selfish place, a selfishness that he will put into terrible action.
One thing that is hard to figure out, is how Aster wants us to understand Joe. It might be that the filmmaker wants to ellicit some sympathy for his protagonist. Except, he is a thoroughly unlikeable person, whose almost every action is done without forethought and with only himself and his needs in mind, as much as he might deceive himself otherwise. He doesn't seem to actually do his job (run the local police force), and when he does ask his deputies to do something, again, it seems he has no idea what he's doing, and every action he takes, makes everything worse. He moves from annoying to inedpt to downright sinister. It can be said, though, that this does make for good drama, and whether Aster intends it or not, it's a good view on the modern Cowboy: someone who simply can't recognize that along with their rights in society, come responsibilities. Now a protagonist absolutely does not have to be likeable (some of the best protagonists aren't), but a lot of what Aster wants his audience to get out of the film, it would seem, is dependant on our thinking that Joe is basically a good guy —except that he really isn't.
This is definitely one of Phoenix's best performances, and he's matched by the rest of the cast. Pascal arguably has the harder role of playing the 'straight' man to Phoenix's crazy one, but Pascal imbues his character with layers to help us see how the ordinary man becomes a not-entirely-honesty small town politician. Likewise, Stone shows us how someone, whose trauma and the truth around it has been willfully ignored by her husband and mother, would turn to a slick conspiracy con man like Vernon for healing.
At a certain point, though, again it's unclear if Aster's satire achieves what he wants it to. As students begin to protest about the George Floyd murder and police brutality, Aster has his supporting characters spout sayings and expressions that have a certain amount of punching cross comedy, the kind that's safe for white people to be able to laugh at themselves. But it also seems a little like punching down, thrown into the film and around without thought as to what meaning it gives. It might be an attempt at neutrality, but both-side-ism is a bit part of how we got into this mess.
Eddington mostly works, mainly due to its cast and the New Mexico location, standing in for the wider small-town-America, in which clashes between those who care and those don't, those who have media literacy and those who refuse it, lead to ruin.
Eddington opens in the USA and Canada on Friday, July 18th.