Aster Bros, we are winning. Fresh after his swing-for-the-fences traumedy, Beau Is Afraid, writer and director Ari Aster is back on the saddle with a return to divisiveness and dark satire. Eddington stars Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal and features a genre blend of neo-western, black comedy, and crime thriller elements that mesh together into a grand scale. Aster is no rookie when it comes to daring genre blending as he has displayed it more and more throughout his filmography. He has also shown a sense of fearlessness instilled in his filmmaking wether it garners positive results or not.
As a massive fan of Hereditary and Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid was a miss as it was conducted on a level of absurdism that very few (including myself) can stomach. Aster’s craftsmanship is undeniably respectable, but I lean towards not enjoying his third feature film even considering Joaquin Phoenix’s standout performance. So is Eddington a return to form or is it another attempt of cerebral ideology that falls apart at the seams? I’m delighted to report that Eddington is not only a win for Aster, but it’s an absolute masterful deconstruction of recent history and society.
A Truly Immersive Western
Eddington is constructed to be a lot of things including a dark satire and action, crime thriller. Firstly, it is a true neo-western that features all sorts of colorful characters and world building blocks. The town of Eddington itself is a featured character and fully immerses you with its quirks and small townisms that make it feel grounded in some sort of reality. It is filled to the brim with hilarious and memorable characters that makes the movie feel semi epic in scale. It helps that it is 150 minutes long, but Ari Aster successfully develops a living and breathing small fictional town that is slowly being ravaged by its own residents and leaders. Joaquin Phoenix is amazing as the lead in Eddington and fully transforms into this town’s bumbling, idiotic sheriff that is kind of hilariously pathetic. Alongside his presence is a plethora of fantastic actors that fuel the world building with motives, trauma, manipulation, and violence. The small town western dynamic was important to hit on and everything works perfectly to construct every crazy angle of this film.
Ari Aster’s directorial style and patient framework builds up Eddington’s western backdrop even more so. I absolutely love the subdued and wide open shots that ushers and involves everything in each scene. There’s very little filmmakers that understand the importance of framing and blocking to make scenes that much more enriched. Aster is at his peak in that particular area and it’s an understatement to say that it heightens the feeling of Eddington truly being a small town western.
Now For The Fun Part
Eddington is not going to be for everybody. Upon hearing about its production, even I doubted how interested I’d be in a film heavily involving COVID-19 and the absurdity of the year 2020. It turns out that Ari Aster might be the only filmmaker to be able to deconstruct these subjects with so much style and absurdism with imposing results.
With all of the ridiculous character writing and genre blending, Eddington establishes itself as one of the defining satires of our time. It becomes clear that Ari Aster does have a love for humanity, so he uses the last 5 years of our history to be cruel and hilarious about it. And when I mean cruel and hilarious, there are going to be a lot of viewers upset with how they believe they are being perceived in this film and that becomes the beauty behind it. Aster is not pointing a serious finger nor is he attempting to declare any deep ideologies. Eddington places humanity and society in 2020 under a microscope that is intentionally distorting it to present it as a farcical jab. 2020 is commonly recognized as a cultural turning point for so many reasons and Aster grabs ahold of it with cinematic style that becomes crucial to the movie’s overall tone and enjoyment.
As I mentioned above, this will once again be yet another polarizing project from Aster. Whether you have media illiteracy or you just don’t care to have 2020 details rehashed, Eddington does not care for your comfort. It revels in its touchiness and bad taste. Fearless filmmaking at its finest.
Movie Of The Year?
I adored Ari Aster’s Eddington and everything packed into it. It contains magisterial genre blending, immersive world building, and unapologetically cruel hilarity that is going to turn off so much of the audience. Aster weaves in more of his signature trauma and dark comedy to shrug at the audience and dare them to watch it front to back. His fearlessness as a filmmaker is quite abundantly clear and this is lot more accessible than his previous entry.
The more I let Eddington marinate, the more I love and appreciate it. Its scale is too expansive and memorable for me not to. Its far too early to declare, but Eddington is a strong contender for film of the year. Ari Aster has hit a home run with this one. This is a 10. Superb stuff here.
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