Knock on Wood

There has been widespread debate (on the internet, at the very least) ever since the pandemic dawned about “COVID entertainment” – when is the public ready for it? Will we ever be ready for it? Is there a statute of limitations for stories about the virus that permanently affected the lives of nearly everyone on the planet? There seemed to be no resistance to prose and memoirs about various lockdown experiences, so why should film be any different?

In the past few years, many films have adopted casual mentions of the pandemic, but Eddington, the latest from offbeat auteur Ari Aster, proves that we have always been “ready” for films that use the COVID lockdown as their core subject matter. Aster, who boldly arrived on the scene in 2018 with Hereditary (before continuing to shock audiences with Midsommar and Beau is Afraid), is no stranger to dauntless storytelling, and Eddington is the latest in his limited line of unexpected tales.

Set in the small fictional town of Eddington, New Mexico, Aster’s Neo-Western odyssey chronicles the political and social rivalry between Sheriff Joe Cross (Joker’s Joaquin Phoenix) and incumbent Mayor Ted Garcia (Fantastic Four’s Pedro Pascal), as the two men claw at each other’s throats amid the escalating heights of 2020’s turbulent summer.

It’s worth noting that though Ari Aster is one of this century’s biggest new arrivals in the filmmaking sphere, I have never connected with his work on as deep a level as I hope to. I was surprised to find that, though his horror work is more precise, Eddington is his most accessible film – he has found a way to put his meticulous tendencies to work in order to appeal to a broader audience than his disturbing, abrasive horror work would typically reach.

That was one chief reason why I found myself on Eddington’s wavelength more often than not. It’s two and a half hours, but doesn’t feel like it (always a bonus), and about half of it feels very inspired by comedic thrillers from the Coen Brothers and their contemporaries. It presents itself as a dark comedy, utterly bleak in outlook but still incredibly funny on its surface. The other half is the angle I’m less sure about – “biting” satire, mostly involving the youth’s involvement in political movements raised in 2020 by events like the George Floyd murder.

The latter aspect is not necessarily making fun of the protests that followed, but more advancing the already-existing commentary on personal righteousness, and how we interpret or bend it according to who we are (or believe we are). Inevitably, it becomes about the right-wing pipeline and conspiracy theory rabbit holes that have found an all-too-comfortable home on social media, and the inherent fallibility in the institution that is the police department – no matter the size of the town it serves.

Alienation is inevitable throughout the works of Mr. Aster, whose polarizing subjects are, this time, holding an uncomfortable mirror up to an audience that is undoubtedly unsure of what to expect from his latest venture. Oddly enough, his methods here are less aggressive, but that doesn’t mean the topic is any less confrontational – that having been said, it’s also Aster at the top of his filmmaking game, balancing themes with visual dynamism as he continues to carve out his directorial niche. Eddington is not for everyone, but I found it to be a very entertaining host for a few hours. I hope you’ll join me there.

Eddington opens in theaters nationwide this Friday, July 18.