Synopsis: In May 2020, a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Austin Butler, William Belleau, Clifton Collins Jr., Emma Stone
Director: Ari Aster
Rated: R
Running Length: 148 minutes
Movie Review in Brief: More sprawling Western than thriller, more infuriating social critique than shoot-’em-up, Eddington is a messy but necessary testament to a fractured moment, and proof that even when the dust settles, the fallout lingers.
When the Pandemic Stopped Feeling Temporary
Remember when we thought two weeks to flatten the curve would be the most challenging part? Those untroubled days of sourdough starters, Tiger King binges, and Zoom happy hours feel like artifacts from another civilization now. Those surreal early days of 2020 feel almost quaint now—a prologue to the long, fractured aftermath that still shadows our lives. For Hollywood, the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t just shut down theaters and delay productions; it revealed the fault lines running beneath our collective sanity. Five years later, Ari Aster has crafted a brutal mirror to hold up to that fevered moment with Eddington, a searing neo-Western that feels less like comforting escapism and more like necessary surgery on our still-tender wounds. Released by A24 and premiering at Cannes 2025, Eddington is Aster’s cinematic scalpel.
Meet Eddington: A Town Teetering on the Edge
Set in early 2020, the fictional New Mexico town of Eddington finds itself grappling with mask mandates and social distancing, much to the irritation of its asthmatic sheriff, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix, Joker). Cross treats masking like a personal insult, convinced his town’s parched streets are immune to the global hysteria fueled by viral misinformation. Across the main drag, Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal, Wonder Woman 1984) courts a tech titan called solidgoldmagikarp, promising a civic rebirth in exchange for compliance with every public health decree. After Joe’s unmasked protest in a grocery aisle sparks a viral meltdown, he throws his battered badge into the mayoral ring, pledging to “restore neighborliness” even as he sinks deeper into the same tribal fury he claims to despise.
Meanwhile, his wife, Louise (Emma Stone, Kinds of Kindness), and her mother, Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), tumble down conspiracy rabbit holes during lockdown, leading them to new-age motivational speaker Vernon Jefferson Peak (Austin Butler, Elvis). Encouraging his flock to “reclaim their identities,” Vernon’s presence adds more tension to the Crosses’ already fraught marriage, and the spiritualist quickly becomes another thorn in Joe’s side. When protests over George Floyd‘s murder spread nationwide and bodies start piling up—some wrapped in trash bags and thrown in the rolling river, others caught in the crosshairs of bitter revenge—Aster’s lens zooms in on how quickly righteous resistance curdles into raw violence. What follows is a slow-motion implosion of a town, a man, and a myth.
Aster’s Style: Slow Burn, Sharp Edge
This genre-jumping film always returns to its roots as a contemporary Western. Joe Cross—a name John Wayne would approve of—embodies the world-weary sheriff archetype, patrolling a town that feels perpetually on the verge of conflict. In Eddington, however, Cross is the source of most of that disruption, not a widespread illness casting its looming shadow. Aster mixes tropes of the wild west with sociopolitical satire, treating the chaos of 2020 as the stranger who rode into town and stirred up trouble at the saloon.
Here, that watering hole belongs to Mayor Garcia, whose controversial past with Cross and increasingly tempestuous present create a powder keg waiting for a spark. And there’s a literal stranger, the bedraggled Lodge (played by an unrecognizable Clifton Collins Jr., Red, White, and Royal Blue), who tumbles into town and seemingly brings the festering ire of the outside world with him.
Aster brings his signature unease to Eddington, blending surrealism with modern Western plot twists. The first act is admittedly slow, 45 minutes of character introductions and expository throat clearing. Eddington finally kicks in like a true Coen Brothers opus dressed up in fancy boots and a bolo tie.
Phoenix and Pascal: A Two-Man Pressure Cooker
Phoenix delivers yet another remarkable performance as Cross, a man who craves validation but can’t accept criticism, who rails against the “elites” while spiraling into elitism himself. Discovering that squaring off against your own village can be more treacherous than any outlaw posse, the more Joe tries to be the voice of the people, the more he alienates them. Aster (Beau is Afraid) lets Phoenix play this all out with heartbreaking precision. It’s twitchy, darty-eyed work from the Oscar winner that gets more insular as the film progresses, leading to a finale that wouldn’t have seemed remotely possible 100 minutes earlier.
Pascal matches him step for preening step, especially in a darkly hilarious, nearly wordless, tension-filled fundraiser scene between himself and Phoenix, set to Katy Perry’s “Firework.” It’s not as gravely shocking as some of Aster’s other career cinematic moments, but it’s almost more horrifying to watch unfold. We already know this dynamic has an unresolved history, and when it erupts, it does so like a pressure cooker with no lid. Even masked for much of the runtime, Pascal exudes an unpredictable charm that coasts on the edge of menace. Is this man really keeping the best interests of Eddington at the forefront of his mind, or does he harbor something insidious behind his community before individual mask?
The Supporting Cast: Some Standouts, Some Gaps
The rest of the ensemble has its highs and lows. Michael Ward‘s understated performance as a young officer in training who gets roped into an escalating mess stands out. Aster uses Ward as a tool to illustrate the dilemma BIPOC law enforcement agents face while working in opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement, and Ward navigates his loyalty to both badge and community with grace. Unfortunately, Stone feels frustratingly underwritten and comes across like an afterthought, more prop than person. O’Connell, at least, gets a few juicy monologues as she sinks deeper into conspiracy hell and gleefully fans the flames of every absurd rumor, but Stone’s role doesn’t offer her the complexity she’s capable of.
The Look and Feel of Eddington's Wild West
Visually, Eddington is a scorched postcard from the end of the unrealized American dream that so many share. Darius Khondji‘s cinematography begins measured and wide, but closes in as paranoia tightens its grip. The finale, shot like a warped first-person shooter, is both disorienting and brutally effective. Anna Terrazas‘s costume design gives Joe a believable mix of schlubby sheriff grit and desert drab, while Elliott Hostetter‘s production design makes the town feel like a relic rotting in real time, all sunbaked storefronts and neon emptiness. The score by The Haxan Cloak and Daniel Pemberton glides between frontier riffs and throbbing digital unease, mirroring Aster’s tonal schizophrenia in the best way.
We’re Still Living in the Fallout
Whether you loved Midsommar or Hereditary, Eddington shows how Ari Aster continues to evolve as a director, refusing to offer tidy resolutions and landing gut punches you didn’t see coming. We’ve barely gotten used to making game nights with friends a regular thing again, and here’s a film reminding us how fast neighborly trust can turn to vendetta fuel. As one character notes, “We can’t go back, but we can learn from our mistakes.”
The events depicted still sting, especially for those of us in Minnesota, which was Ground Zero for many of the social uprisings revisited in the film. We’re only five years removed from them, and there’s genuine PTSD lurking in these scenes. You can tell yourself it’s only a movie, but we’ve lived through this so recently that the statement feels hollow. We’re reminded daily of the crud that was left behind, and pretending we’ve put it all behind us is the real fantasy.
The multiple endings aren’t aiming for redemption but loop until you feel dizzy, yet it stirs conversation in the way only bold cinema can. More sprawling Western than thriller, more infuriating social critique than shoot-’em-up, it’s a messy but necessary testament to a fractured moment, and proof that even when the dust settles, the fallout lingers. What sticks isn’t the sporadic gore or the political barbs, but the memory that we’re still wrestling with everything 2020 threw at us. Even if you hate it, it’s accomplished its mission by forcing us to confront the ugliness we thought we’d left behind, only to discover it’s been fermenting in the dark corners of our consciousness ever since.
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