Ari Aster remains one of the most peculiar filmmakers to emerge over the past decade. He came charging out of the gate with 2018’s Hereditary, a grief-soaked horror drama that took the world by storm and helped solidify the so-called “elevated horror” wave that A24 would come to define. In 2019, he deepened his preoccupation with loss and emotional devastation through the bright, sun-drenched nightmare that was Midsommar. But in 2023, Aster threw a curveball with Beau Is Afraid, a darkly surreal, horror-laced satire that tunneled into maternal enmeshment and the paranoia that festered in its wake. It was a polarizing film, and I had mixed feelings myself, but I respected the audacity of the swing. Now, in 2025, Aster is taking yet another massive creative risk with Eddington, a neo-western set in a small New Mexico town during the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Given the setting and subject matter, it’s safe to say this one is going to be divisive. In fact, I’m willing to bet Eddington ends up being the most polarizing film of the year.
In May of 2020, a standoff brews in the small, dying town of Eddington, New Mexico, between the town’s sheriff, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix, who always delivers) and the mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal). Cross is a traditional conservative, who is very individualist as he believes people should be allowed to live their lives however they want to. Garcia on the other hand, is a classical progressive who believes in the collective good. Neither are particularly bad people. However, the Covid-19 pandemic sparked a powder keg of brewing resentment and hatred that pits neighbor against neighbor that eventually turns violent.
What will undoubtedly frustrate a lot of viewers about Eddington is that the film isn’t particularly interested in picking a side. Instead, it plunges headfirst into the madness and paranoia of a moment in time that, like it or not, has permanently altered the fabric of society. Some might dismiss this as cowardly centrism, but to me, that neutrality feels like a stroke of brilliance. It allows for a raw, unfiltered look at a chaotic period without the moral high ground looming over it. Had the film taken a side, it would’ve risked slipping into a condescending posture, preaching rather than observing. But by refusing to do that, Aster creates space to say something much more honest.
For the first ninety minutes, the film sets the table as it plunges into the sheer lunacy of the pandemic. May 2020 marked the peak of lockdowns and the sobering realization that Covid wasn’t going to disappear anytime soon. So, the chaos begins and Aster pulls no punches. On the conservative side, he dives headfirst into the swirling conspiracy theories that swept through that camp, exposing the ironic selfishness of it all through the character of Cross. Cross refuses to wear a mask because it makes him uncomfortable and believes the government is overreaching. His heart might be in the right place, sure, but he’s selfish, entitled, and entirely blind as to why masks were necessary at that point in time. Even more ironic? He downplays the severity of Covid, despite having asthma, which puts him at higher risk.
His wife, Louise (Emma Stone), and his mother-in-law, Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), are holed up at home, spiraling deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. Everything from anti-vax nonsense to QAnon-style child sex trafficking hysteria. Louise, a rape survivor, eventually latches onto Vernon Jefferson Peak (Austin Butler), a cult-like figure who spews fire and brimstone about elite-run trafficking rings. It’s a pointed look at how right-wing media preys on the vulnerable and traumatized. Unfortunately, this storyline, while initially compelling, is mostly abandoned as the film progresses, which is a shame.
On the progressive side, Aster zeroes in on the out-of-touch hypocrisy and moral superiority complex that often plagues the left, seen through the character of Garcia and the idealistic youth of Eddington. Garcia believes in the dangers of Covid, even the ridiculous ones like Covid staying on an amazon package for weeks, and preaches, loudly to the public and to his son, in the power of masking and social distancing to level the curve. That is until nobody is looking, where he has his own parties and meetings unmasked. Furthermore, when questioned about the stresses and strains that a new data center will have on Eddington’s scarce resources, he responds with “can we shut this bitch up”. Despite all his posturing, he clearly doesn’t care, he just wants to look like he does.
While the youth of Eddington get so caught up in the George Floyd and BLM protests and riots, that they forgot how to protest and how to have reasonable conversations. If anyone tries to engage them in a calm discussion, they shout, cry, and scream over them until the dissenting voice is drowned out. They block traffic, vandalize public property, and at the slightest disagreement, slap on labels like “racist,” “bigot,” or “Nazi,” then blast it all over social media in the name of activism. It’s activism as performance, loud, hostile, and dripping with that same condescending moral superiority that ultimately does more harm than good to the progressive causes they claim to support.
These first 90 minutes are bound to infuriate a lot of viewers. Not only does the film drag us back to a time most of us would rather forget, but it also satirizes that period and the people who lived through it in ways that might hit a little too close to home. And once the shouting starts, the film turns into a pressure cooker, ready to explode. Oddly enough, the shouting didn’t bother me. What did was how much the story started to drag. I kept glancing at my watch, waiting for that inevitable burst. Thirty minutes passed. Then forty-five. Then sixty. At an hour and fifteen, we were halfway through, and still nothing. It wasn’t until the 90-minute mark that the film finally exploded and transformed into something completely different. Honestly, those first 90 minutes could’ve easily been trimmed to a tighter 60 to help with the slow burn. But once the film finally snapped and shifted into the next gear, the entire theater went dead silent, locked in.
Eddington takes a sharp left turn from a biting satire of society’s collective meltdown during the Covid-19 pandemic into a calculated, yet completely unhinged crime thriller. The shift is jarring, abrupt and that’s the point. The bubble bursts, and from that moment on, there’s no going back. Logic, empathy, even basic human decency is tossed out the window. What’s left is chaos, dread, and a full-on spiral into madness. And it’s in this descent that Aster takes his craft to staggering new heights, fully shedding any remaining label of “indie horror guy” and cementing himself as one of the boldest, most ambitious directors working today.
He plunges us headfirst into a world where the characters, already frayed by paranoia and political tension, are now fighting to survive a new kind of nightmare. It’s tense, unrelenting, and often absurd, capturing the suffocating anxiety of pandemic life and then stretching it into something even more nightmarish. From the claustrophobic prison of home quarantine to explosive, large-scale shootouts in the shadowy, dust-blown outskirts of New Mexico, Aster gives us a vision of America pushed past its breaking point. And somehow, in all the madness, it still feels eerily familiar.
Some might call Aster a coward for not planting a political flag in Eddington, for refusing to take a hard stance on the Covid-19 pandemic. I disagree. Sure, not all of his messaging lands, and the script could have been tighter in places. But what does come through is subtle and, honestly, pretty profound. At its core, Eddington is less about politics and more about how humanity, despite being more digitally connected than ever, has completely lost the ability to communicate. We’ve reached a point where having a simple political conversation without someone shouting “woke,” “Nazi,” “snowflake,” or “racist” feels almost impossible. We don’t talk anymore. We yell, label, cancel, and move on. We’re more polarized than ever, and the people in power are quietly benefiting from that division. That’s the undercurrent running through Eddington. And while Aster never spells it out, you feel it. It’s a message most of us secretly recognize but don’t want to admit, because we’re still too busy fighting the person next door. And for Aster to say all of this, without preaching, just five years out from the pandemic, takes guts. You don’t have to like Eddington. It’s messy, chaotic, and it will definitely rub some people the wrong way. But you do have to admire its ambition. We need more filmmakers willing to take big swings like this.
My Rating: B+
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