Richard Crouse

SYNOPSIS: Set in a small, dusty New Mexico town, the satirical neo-Western “Eddington,” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal and now playing in theatres, sees a humiliated man pushed to extremes in the early days of the pandemic.

CAST: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Austin Butler, and Emma Stone. Written and directed by Ari Aster.

REVIEW: No one will accuse writer-director Ari Aster of a lack of ambition. “Eddington” throws a handful of genres—neo-Western, political satire, dark comedy, and thriller—into a blender to tell a chaotic story of the early pandemic era. At 145 minutes Aster digs deep into a specific time in the summer of 2020 when the world was turned up-side down by COVID, social distancing, George Soros conspiracy theories, Bitcoin, post truth and any other number of hot button topics. It was a time of ideological whiplash that Aster essays in a film that addresses those powder-keg topics without completely lighting the fuse.

Joaquin Phoenix is Joe Cross, sheriff of the sleepy little town of Eddington, New Mexico and husband to Louise (Emma Stone), a complex woman who suffers from anxiety. Her fragile mental state is exacerbated by her mother Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), a conspiracy obsessed who never met a bit of misinformation she couldn’t embrace.

Joe’s anti-mask stance—”There’s no COVID-19 in Eddington,” he says—puts him in conflict with Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), Eddington’s incumbent mayor now running for re-election.

As outside influences take hold in Eddington, anti-racist protests break out on their lone main drag in response to the death of George Floyd, and calls to de-fund the police ring in Joe’s ears.

As Joe and Ted’s personal and professional animosities grow, the sheriff takes matters into his own hands and announces his bid to run for mayor. With slogans like “Joe Cross for Air! Joe Cross for Mayor!” and “Try No Corruption for a Change,” Joe’s run at public office leads him to down a dangerous and deadly path.

The action described above plays out against a background of news and social media reports of the turbulent social, political, and economic climate that were the earmarks of the era, adding to the film’s unsettled feel.

Unlike most Westerns, even recent neo-Westerns, this isn’t a story of good guys vs. bad guys. In “Eddington,” everyone is morally ambiguous, and while you may like some characters over others, all are damaged, driven by ego, selfishness, greed or ideology.

As Sheriff Joe, Phoenix is a weak man in a job that requires strength and decisiveness, qualities that seem foreign to him until he is pushed up against a wall. A flip on the usual, stoic main figure in a typical Western, this is a guy whose character flaws make up his character. Phoenix isn’t afraid to make him pathetic, and in doing so, delivers another interesting, edgy performance. He’s a walking metaphor, an emasculated man emblematic of the fears and concerns that defined the uncertain, divisive summer of 2020.

He’s a complex guy, an attribute that can’t be said of any of the film’s other characters.

As the smooth-talking mayor, Pascal’s laid-back performance is an antidote to the film’s intensity, but the character doesn’t give him much room to maneuver. Ditto Emma Stone, whose limited screen time reveals a committed performance but little else.

On the plus side, “Eddington” is a confrontational experience, a provocative recreation of the unsettling chaos of the pandemic years and its effect on humanity. On the debit side of the leger, Aster’s reluctance to dig beneath the film’s unsettled surface puts a dull edge on the film’s satire.