Eddington
July 14th, 2025
MOVIE: EDDINGTON
STARRING: JOAQUIN PHOENIX, PEDRO PASCAL, EMMA STONE, AUSTIN BUTLER
DIRECTED BY: ARI ASTER
AMovieGuy.com’s RATING: 3 ½ STARS (Out of 4)
RATED: R
RUN TIME: 148 MINUTES
Whatever star rating I give Eddington, it doesn’t matter. Ari Aster’s latest film—his follow-up to Beau Is Afraid—is not designed to make you feel comfortable. It’s a modern Western, but more accurately, it’s a magnifying glass held up to 2020—and, by extension, to the world we live in today. It’s terrifying, possibly too soon, and yet impossible to look away. Eddington is a microcosm of everything that feels broken in society. It reflects constant infighting, ignorance in positions of power, the grip of conspiracy theories, the ongoing fight against racial injustice, and the alienation of a hyper-connected world. It’s fascinating, disturbing, and layered. In other words, unmistakably an Ari Aster film.
Aster’s trajectory to this point is remarkable. Hereditary explores family and grief with chilling precision. Midsommar was a psychedelic spiral into toxic relationships and collective denial. Beau Is Afraid was a surreal plunge into generational trauma and paranoia. Now, Eddington feels like a full-on confrontation with America itself—its fractured identity, its haunted past, and the strange bedfellows we coexist with. At its core is the unsettling journey of Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix). The result? Quite possibly the most American film of the last decade.
Set in 2020, Cross is a cowboy-hat-wearing, simple-minded but deeply committed sheriff of Eddington, New Mexico. His wife, Louise (Emma Stone), is scarred by trauma, quietly retreating into a world of doll-making. Her mother (Deirdre O’Connell), a conspiracy theorist, keeps a shrine to her deceased husband in the living room. Meanwhile, Eddington’s mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), is a liberal idealist trying to bring tech jobs to town while simultaneously fighting off the rising threat of COVID-19.
The spark is a mask dispute at a local grocery store. Joe defends the man refusing to comply, setting off a tense clash with Mayor Garcia. Fueled by outrage, Joe announces his candidacy for mayor via Facebook Live. From there, the story spirals fast. As the real-life events of 2020 unfold—George Floyd’s murder, protests against police brutality, economic hardship—so does the unraveling of a small town like Eddington. A homeless man antagonizes local shops. Louise falls under the sway of an online preacher named Vernon (Austin Butler). Lies multiply, accusations fly, and Joe descends into manipulation, violence, and unrelenting thirst for power.
There’s a lot to unpack in Eddington and more than what can fit in a review. Some will say it’s too soon for a film that so directly mirrors recent history, with its raw portrayal of political division, medical misinformation, and social paranoia. But Aster threads it all into a tightly coiled, anxiety-laced narrative. In its final acts, the film shifts from somber to suspenseful, echoing the cat-and-mouse tension of No Country for Old Men. And just when you think it can’t get darker, Aster lands one final, gut-wrenching blow that leaves you cold and shell-shocked.
Much of the conversation will inevitably center on Aster’s handling of race, morality, and whether the film offers any answers—or merely provokes outrage. But maybe that’s the point. Eddington isn’t here to comfort or solve anything. It’s here to reflect, to agitate, to hold a mirror up to the chaos we’ve endured and the divisions we continue to live with. There are no heroes here—only the sobering realization that we’re all living in something that feels eerily like an Ari Aster film.
Let’s hope we can wake up from this nightmare. Sooner rather than later.
3 ½ STARS
EDDINGTON IS PLAYING IN SELECT THEATERS FRIDAY, JULY 18TH, 2025.
Written by: Leo Brady
