It's very good to remember that films featuring immoral characters do not make the films themselves, or the film-makers, immoral. We can have stories featuring bad and unpleasant characters, and the best stories can use those characters to explore society and humanity in ways not always possible with bland, "good", heroes. I also have to note, however, that presenting those characters in a way that doesn't do enough with them, isn't good. And, as is the case here, it can sometimes feel quite irresponsible. I get exasperated enough with the news lately mistaking impartiality with equal screentime for opinions that are unequally-informed (or simply incorrect, which means giving equal time to truth and lies). Having to tolerate it for the duration of a 148-minute movie was not a great time for me.
It's 2020. A global pandemic is happening. In Eddington, New Mexico, this creates ongoing friction between a mayor (Ted Garcia, played by Pedro Pascal) who wants to abide by the rules and a sheriff (Joe Cross, played by Joaquin Phoenix) who believes that people should be allowed to maintain their personal freedoms. Everyone is forced to take a side on the issue, and tempers rise, especially when Cross decides to run against Garcia for the chance to be mayor.
There's plenty to laugh at here, and writer-director Ari Aster does enough to justify taking viewers back to the madness of 2020 in the first half of the film. Arguments about what is and isn't permissible, the rabbit holes that people went down when they had too much time on their hands and access to the global asylum that is the internet, and the clarification of the divide between the haves and the have-nots are just a few of the things that Aster explores well enough in the earliest scenes in the film. Sadly, Aster then throws more into the mix (including the ease with which people can try to win arguments by throwing out triggering words that stain others forever, but also looking at protest, counter-protests, false flag operations, agendas and agitation, and domestic terrorism) until it all boils over to create a huge mess that he cannot clean up by the time the end credits roll.
Phoenix is absolutely brilliant in the main role, as expected (considering his usual level of talent, as well as the fact that Aster seems to have placed a lot of faith in him for the two movies that have allowed them to collaborate). He's cowardly, smart enough to make him a dangerous idiot, and constantly pushing back against more powerful people without ever considering just how he is being manipulated by so many others. Pascal is also very good, although he isn't given enough to really sink his teeth into before the film moves beyond him to start reminding viewers of a bigger picture. Emma Stone feels wasted, as does Austin Butler, but there's a turn from Deirdre O'Connell that makes up for that disappointment. Others caught up in the madness are Luke Grimes, Micheal Ward, Matt Gomez Hidaka, Cameron Mann, Amélie Hoeferle, and William Belleau, and none of them drop the ball.
The one dropping the ball is Aster. What could have been an effective skewering of a situation that turned so many people into temporary lunatics (and I count myself in that demographic, considering there's a big reason why I have now been sober since May 2020) becomes sadly neutered and defanged with each subsequent story beat. Cinematically, there are moments that work when viewed out of context. But none of this should be viewed out of context. The context is key, and the context should have been the target that Aster kept in his sights for the duration. He doesn't. Which means that viewers can, metaphorically, examine the target once the movie has finished to see that it retains the marks of only one or two lucky strikes.
5/10
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