Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Michael Ward, Clifton Collins Jr, Deidre O’Connell, Cameron Mann
Written And Directed By: Ari Aster
Release Year: 2025
Studio/Streamer: A24
Runtime: 148 minutes
Audio Description produced By:
Written by:
Narrated By: Roy Samuelson
What Is it? Set during the age of the covid pandemic, a small town in New Mexico is rocked by everything from mask mandates to fake news to religious zealotry and escalating tensions. A Sheriff (Phoenix) faces off against the mayor (Pascal) when they have fundamental differences of opinions. Aster’s attempt to satirize the climate during the time of Covid, and after.
Why It Doesn’t Work: Kitchen Sink: the Movie. Even though I did not enjoy this, I do enjoy that aster is certainly not a dull filmmaker, or someone who rests on his laurels. He is trying to push himself, creatively, and challenge his audiences. His progression from hereditary to midsummer to Bo is Afraid shows a director capable of change, and not risk averted. Last year there were several auteur driven films that didn’t work, but I appreciated for taking big swings. megalopolis, joker Folie Aux deux, and Here certainly fell short, but each one of those films represented a bold choice by a well respected director. Here, Aster swings, and for me, he misses.
It’s hard to say this is a film with a strong opinion on who was right or wrong, because it takes a near nihilistic approach by the end, where everyone realy loses. No winners. Aster might be trying to communicate that a house divided against itself cannot stand, he just goes about it in the strangest and most meandering way possible. from seemingly focusing on how weird we were during the pandemic, he starts roping in his feelings on big tech, Black Lives Matter, political campaigns, and whatever he was trying to communicate via Austin butler. I’m still not really sure, and as an entity, I think the film is stronger without his whole distracting presence.
There is so much packed into this it becomes hard to see what Aster could have really gotten out of an actress like Emma Stone. She’s also somewhat wasted in a thankless role, especially when you realize she’s a two-time Oscar winner, and the film could exist without her.
I would advocate for a stripped down, more focused version, that sticks to its initial conflict over mask mandates, and whether or not we’re spreading misinformation during covid or not. what he does is pick a town where covid hasn’t reached yet, which makes the panic even more able to dissect since those who are at a fever pitch are worried about what might come to their sleepy town from somewhere else. It’s the one extreme that works, and Aster might have tried to focus more on this struggle than some of the others.
I do appreciate the swing, but not every person can nail satire, and this comes across as Aster’s way of processing everything he felt during a span of a few years, and cramming it into one screenplay. It would be like if a director made a film with a cast of characters, but tried to pull in all the themes and major moments from just 2025. It would come across as rather scattershot, as you’d have a lot of political tensions roped in, but also hot button stories like egg prices, or seemingly endless wars in foreign lands. And there would definitely be talk of tariffs.
Eddington is too much, and considering my favorite film of his is Bo Is Afraid, that’s saying a lot. He certainly makes a myriad of unusual choices there, but he seems to never lose his main idea. Eddington is not the same movie at the end that it was at the beginning, not because our characters grew over the runtime, but because the thread changed.
The Audio Description: Roy delivers a solid track, and it’s nice to see him assigned to a major theatrical release. He’s one of the best voices, but I hear him on a lot more TV showss than films. There’s so much happening here, I can’t imagine not having AD. And because it is Aster, and while it is his least violent or gory film, it does have a few moments of really shocking and brutal gore which are really well supported. it wouldn’t be an Ari Aster film if someone didn’t lose their head.
Why You Might Liek it: I think this is one of the top 10 conversation pieces of the year. it’s a film more people should see, just so we can get the conversation going.
Why You Might Not Like it: It’s certainly a film that demands your attention, and asks a lot of you. I think people who love Aster will struggle with this because it is so different from something like Hereditary.
Final Thoughts: It is like aster has a hundred darts to throw at the wall, yet somehow not only did none hit the bullseye, they also missed the dart board entirely.
Rotten: Final grade: 3.9/10
