Review: Eddington Takes on the Chaotic 2020 Politics of COVID

There’s never been a movie quite like Eddington. This latest offering from the independent film studio A24 is ripped from the headlines of summer 2020, when the dual crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Floyd protests slammed a very anxious America.

Eddington‘s first half adopts the disguise—a face mask, perhaps—of very recent historical fiction: Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) is a small-town New Mexico sheriff in a standoff with Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) over statewide coronavirus mandates. Cross is a right-wing guy living with his nutty mother-in-law and even nuttier wife, clearly influenced by their conspiracy theorizing.

The sheriff’s initial acts of resistance against government health mandates are cast in a sympathetic light; Cross is not a caricature, and his well-founded dislike of mask mandates imbues the film’s first act with a libertarian flavor. Eddington‘s skewering of performative wokeness is similarly effective: The anti-racism protesters are portrayed as misguided, clout-chasing buffoons. Halfway in, many viewers will wonder if they are watching the most right-wing major film since The Dark Knight Rises.

Then Eddington takes a very unexpected turn, veering into a territory that borders horror and science fiction. It’s clearly a deliberate choice; one surmises that writer-director Ari Aster intended to capture the collective feelings of confusion, anger, and paranoia that overtook America in 2020, bottle them up, shake furiously, and see what happens. The result is a delirious, head-scratching final sequence that is so incomprehensible it’s borderline offensive. You’ve had fever dreams that make more sense than this.

If that was Aster’s point—that there’s no use looking for logic in a world driven mad by plague, resentment, and tyranny—then Eddington deserves acclaim. But like the era it covers, you’ll be in no hurry to experience it again.