EDDINGTON (Ari Aster, 2025)

I just got back from my second viewing of Ari Aster’s latest film – so you know I liked it – but I probably shouldn’t recommend it to you, even if I tell you that I laughed even harder this time.

If you’ve read as many reviews as I have you’ll have been told repeatedly that although technically the film is a wonder (casting, acting, cinematography, score, direction, et al.) there is just something wrong with the story. Some reviewers can’t put their finger on it, some are angry about certain of Aster’s characterization (either too provocative or too hollow), some feel the story has no real point and impugn him with merely provoking or grandstanding, while other folks are still triggered by anything portraying lockdown during the pandemic, like the first title: “Late May, 2020”. Some folks are upset there’s no demons or bizarre Swedish villages involved and that the only monsters in it are us.

Your opinion is the one that matters most in this case, and, admittedly, I have uncommon tastes, but I think most people are missing the point.

I think what Ari has done here is successfully skewer all sides from that time in an openly surreal and darkly humored vision (think South Park directed by Steven Soderbergh) and dressed it up as a modern Western. As he’s stated, this is a film about building a data center. It puts me in mind of that Zappa quote that politics is the entertainment branch of business, it’s what the powers that be distract us with while they commit the real evils. The pandemic was just a perfect time for them to sow division among the populace and keep us occupied and fearful as we scrabbled through those days.

Mr. Aster also makes time to skewer faux activism, mask wearers, non-mask wearers, child abusers, the decline of the patriarchy and the rise of inept white men, the police and politicians, the handling of firearms, and all manner of deception and conspiracy theories (especially the mythos surrounding Antifa); however, I get the feeling that some people felt the representation of their enlightened attitudes during that time were not treated with the proper reverence. I also hear a lot of reviewers crying out “Too soon!” As a Subgenius, this endears this film to me even more. After this repeat viewing, I see Eddington as a huge “fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke” sort of satirical sprawl, condensed and weaponized by one of the the better writer/directors out there.

Mostly, I think the film is about – at least from the constant weight it’s given in the film – how we all fell into our phone, computer, and TV screens and quit listening to each other. Everyone had something judgmental to say about everyone outside their “tribe” but no one cared to make time to hear them in response. A story like that might make it hard to feel the heartbeat of the plot when there’s so much static and chatter layered on top of it but maybe you’re one of those people in the audience who are of a mind to seek it.