Eddington: an exhausting and virtuoso film [critique]

In the USA Cavids of 2020, Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal clash to become mayors of a small town in New Mexico … Between comedy, Horror and Western, a new Summit of Ari Aster.

After the triumphs ofHeredity and MidsummerAri Aster began to distance himself from the kind of horror, probably for fear of being locked in a box or cluttered by labels. Beau is afraidher third long, three-hour psychoanalytic odyssey, seriously blurred the tracks, between black comedy, film-trip and cartoon psyche. “But who is Ari Aster?” was one of the hundreds of questions we asked ourselves leaving the room …

Eddington Confirms in any case that with him, horror is never far away – if we hear by horror of nightmare visions, of the violence that takes the guts, a feeling of amazement, and the impression of sinking into a bad trip more sticky with each step. The nightmare, here is that of America in decay of the 2020s – May 2020, very precisely, in the heart of the Cavid Pandemic. The film takes place in a town of New Mexico, which serves as microscopic metonymy to the whole country, and plunges our heads first into an explosive shaker condensing the evils, defects and Maboule obsessions of the time.

The entire most hysterized US population, politically upset, or just completely lost, is therefore there: conspiracy, illuminated gurus, landing influencers, anti -fed activists, delusional clodos … A monstrous parade convened via a myriad of computer or smartphones screens, frames in the frame Eddington Its aggressive and patraque appearance. A received idea says it would not be interesting to film people with their noses in their phone. Not interesting? When Ari Aster and photo director Darius Khondji sticks to it, it becomes.

The film settles its step on that of a sheriff at the end of the roll, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), about to go into politico-psychotic spinning. Because he refuses to wear a mask because of his asthma, and he became a micro-star of the networks after having helped another non-masked citizen to do his shopping at the local supermarket, Joe decides to run for the post of mayor against the current councilor (Pedro Pascal), who supports the Big Business Government. Between them, there is the wife of Cross, Louise (Emma Stone), unhappy artist suffering from an unspeakable evil. So much for the starting point, which gives only a very vague idea of the hallucinated dimension that will soon take the matter. Quite tortuous in its implementation, carried by a very creaky humor which first seems to return back to back all parts of fractured America, Eddington Gradually dives into the dark night and is working to make us feel concretely, physically, what disorientation (political, moral, existential) is, the jamming of landmarks and perception, the feeling of disintegration of reality, of a floor of cows that would hide under our feet.

We are talking about cows because the frame is that of the ancestral western and the main character is the (degenerate) descendant of a long line of cinema sheriffs. But we are in the world after No Country For Old Mena notch even further than the coen in darkness and panic. A reference to John Ford at the end of the film, and before that the express and devastating visit of a museum dedicated to the history of the West, confirms Aster’s ambition to be part of the major US mythological stories. His story to him, which goes far beyond a simple game of massacre, testifies to a concern and deep despair, expressed in an abrasive, exhausting style, clearly not made to please everyone, but absolutely unique in its kind. Who is Ari Aster, damn it? A great American filmmaker, well, this is a role that suits him.

By Ari Aster. With Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone … Duration: 2h27. Release on July 16, 2025