Eddington

Director: Ari Aster
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Pedro Pascal, Deidre O’Connell, Austin Butler, Micheal Ward
Distributor: Access Entertainment
Runtime: 148 mins. Reviewed in Aug 2025
Reviewer: Peter W Sheehan

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Rating notes: Strong themes and violence

This American drama tells the story of the conflicts engendered in a small US town that involves the town’s sheriff and its mayor. The conflicts pit neighbour against neighbour in Eddington, New Mexico, US.

In 2020, societal friction erupts in the state of New Mexico which divides the communities in the fictional town of Eddington. Pandemic hysteria arises about the likely occurrence of ‘Covid’. In the threat of impending disease breaking out, racial division becomes rife; and aggression, social confusion, and mistrust erupt.

Eddington’s world-weary sheriff, Joe Cross (Phoenix), is called out to handle conflict that breaks out at the town’s hotel. Cross wants to be elected mayor, replacing the current mayor, Ted Garcia (Pascal). Cross and Garcia radically differ on how to assert responsible liberty. Cross becomes increasingly unnerved about the probability of Covid, and his behaviour becomes irrational.

The film strongly depicts violence which satirically highlights probable health concerns. At times, the film’s violence is handled comically. Director Aster plays fast and loose with medical and psychological strategies that potentially ward off the risk of contamination, and Aster flirts fearlessly and comically with Covid. Cross, for example, refuses to wear a mask that Mayor Garcia says is a ‘must’; and both continue to oppose each other on how behaviour should appropriately reflect personal ‘liberty’ and proper ‘independence’ as they are perceived.

Aster has directed the movie as a microcosm of life in an age when society is characterised by misinformation, ignorance, and irrational behaviour. The town of Eddington succumbs to social and cultural chaos. Conspiracy theories erupt everywhere, and people become easy victims of madness, where irrational behaviour is endorsed widely. Such a climate lays the foundation for an internet-guru/cult-like leader, Vernon Park (Butler), who engages in provocative behaviour.

This is a film where humour, wit, and violence mingle readily with tension, irrationality, and emotional release. Park, for example, encourages his followers to recover memories of abuse they might have experienced.

The film is full of unsettling imagery, graphic language, violence and nudity. The team of actors that has been assembled for the movie is exceptional, and the movie is intentionally provocative. The movie offers cogent satire of a culture that hopefully won’t ever eventuate. The film itself, however, depicts a culture which could eventuate.

If one sentence might summarise the film – the movie is breathtaking in its lack of humanity, brilliantly executed.