Eddington

In the small Texas town of {Eddington}, there is a political stalemate between the incompetent sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and the cocky new mayor (Pedro Pascal). The sheriff feels suffocated by both the coronavirus restrictions and the mayor's bullying attitude; his throne as {Eddington}'s protector is clearly threatened, and he nominates himself as a candidate for the next mayoral election. But since this is an Ari Aster film, things don't go as planned, and what starts as a minor rivalry soon turns into a hellish spiral of devastating consequences...

After the emotionally draining lobotomy that was {Beau Is Afraid}, Aster's new film feels a bit like an apology to everyone who was scared off by the controversial {Beau}, an assurance that this one won't go completely over the top. Rather just a little. But for a film that keeps its feet on the ground, it still feels like an Aster film when it comes to the cold sweat and nervousness it evokes. Everything from the ominous slow pans to the anxiety-filled silence is there, just covered in hospital masks and desert sand. The atmosphere is thick with anxiety and desperation and keeps the viewer constantly on edge, waiting for something much worse to come around the corner. Just seeing the mumbling, homeless man shuffling around in the background for most of the film is enough to make you anxious.

The dick-measuring contest between Phoenix and Pascal's characters is engaging...

In many ways, Aster's modern Western thriller feels dated because of the pandemic and all that it entails, but in many other ways, it's also more relevant than ever and serves as a kind of time capsule to capture the moment when the United States broke down. We still feel the divided politics, the dominance of conspiracy theories, and the confined bubble that social media has created since the pandemic, and the lack of communication and empathy becomes a central theme in {Eddington}. That manic self-conviction and the meaningless culture war that spread like wildfire also finds its way into the characters, leading to some really funny scenes involving bored woke youth and several interactions where {Phoenix} gets to shine as the pathetic small-town sheriff.

{Eddington} feels a little too long for its own good, with Aster just spraying on the nightmare fuel towards the final drawn-out act, which also offers a really wild western chase. It's pretty mild for an Aster film, but that doesn't make it any less atmospheric. {Eddington} is a very well-oiled tragedy dripping with satire and darkness in virtually every aspect, further enhanced by {Phoenix}'s consistently phenomenal performance and Aster's delightful cynicism, which is the icing on the cake in an already dense neo-western.