If you know nothing of Ari Aster’s Eddington going in — or of the nature of his previous films, including Hereditaryand Midsommar— the time stamp that appears on the screen within the first few minutes is likely to trigger anxiety anyhow: “May 2020.”
Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal play, respectively, the sheriff and mayor of the small rural town of Eddington, N.M., who face off politically and personally. Scenes in the film reverberate with the distressing echo of déjà vu: characters fall down COVID-19 conspiracy holes, an unmasked person is denied service in a grocery store as others clap in approval.
The news out of Minneapolis of George Floyd’s murder activates Eddington’s predominantly white community in the same way it did many real communities across the globe that year — the perfect alchemy of pent-up restlessness from extended isolation, genuine outrage at racial injustice and an abundance of free time. Aster gets something about that ephemeral period of collective “racial reckoning” right, as many characters take to the streets to protest police brutality and recite anti-racist talking points ad nauseum without contemplating a follow-up plan for concrete action. To put it bluntly, they are admirable yet insufferable, their postured passion only magnified by the director’s choice to focus on the hormonal and angsty teens of the bunch…