Cinema Review: Eddington (2025)
Directed by Ari Aster
Written by Ari Aster
Produced by: Lars Knudsen, Ari Aster & Ann Ruark
Main Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Austin Butler and Emma Stone.
Cinematography by Darius Khondji
*** MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ***
Ari Aster’s first two horror films, Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019) were rightly critically acclaimed and delivered at the box office too. His third film Beau is Afraid (2023) was a flop when compared and in my view not surprising. The film was arguably, depending on your view, a hilarious, risk-taking arthouse tragi-comedy or a self-indulgent act of egregious career self-sabotage. Safe to say I did not enjoy it, so approached the latest A24-produced film of Aster’s, Eddington (2025), with emotional caution.
Thankfully Aster’s screenplay, characters and all-round production of Eddington (2025), are far more accessible and focused than his third feature. Pedro Pascal and Joaquin Phoenix anchor Eddington (2025) superbly, as Aster delivers a blistering small-town allegory that uses a public health crisis as the spark for something far larger. What begins with Mayor Ted Garcia (Pascal) dutifully following the Governor’s lockdown orders quickly escalates when Sheriff Joe Cross (Phoenix) refuses to comply and runs for Mayor himself. This casts the town and people into a conflict that mirrors America’s own political division.
Phoenix brings his trademark intensity to Sheriff Cross, whose defiance feels equal parts principled and unhinged, while Pascal’s Mayor, revealed to be a corporate puppet, balances him as a leader losing grip on his authority. Thus, Eddington (2025) is a powerful film whose strength lies in the performances and a brave, intelligent screenplay which asks many questions. The main issues I had were under-developed character arcs for Emma Stone’s and Austin Butler’s characters. Further, as in previous films Aster relies heavily on left-field plot turns, which go more for shock, rather than understandable character development. Indeed, the final act Western-style shootout, while incredibly exciting, seems out-of-sync with the thoughtful build-up and drama established in the first hour.
Ultimately, Director Ari Aster resists turning Eddington (2025) into just a COVID-era-morality tale; instead, the film confidently threads together a powerful mix of left and right-wing US politics, toxic masculinity, historical sexual abuse, conspiracy and alternative theories, cultish religious fervour, white saviour virtue-signalling, homegrown terrorism, algorithmic influence of social media, and the creeping threat of corporate greed. Each theme and subplot fold back into the central question: who really controls the narrative in modern America or is it a nation spiraling out of control toward inevitable civil war? The result is a tense, unsettling portrait of a town—and a country—at war with itself.
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