‘Eddington’: Ari Aster goes where no one else would go
It seemed as though, despite the enormity of the year, many artists seemed to join in on an unofficial agreement that no one would touch 2020. Many wanted to move on from the year Covid-19 put the whole world in a lockdown and shove it into the past, hoping that it would firmly stay there and remain a short blip in our collective experience. But despite our efforts, it slowly seems to be seeping into the public conscience, with people abandoning the six-foot pole we approached it with and reflecting on the devastation, chaos and complete pandemonium of an unprecedented time, something that Ari Aster has made the subject of his highly anticipated new movie, Eddington.
‘Hindsight is 2020’ is the slogan of Aster’s latest odyssey, which follows the mayor and sheriff of a small town called Eddington as they engage in a bitter feud to take control of their community, set against the chaos of the pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement. Given that many of Aster’s films seem to tackle strained family dynamics, particularly between mother and son, it seemed like an obvious curveball from the director, and a brave one at that.
The sheer scale of 2020 and the catastrophes it birthed almost seems like an impossible subject, but instead of tackling each event or trying to ‘say something’ about its impact, Aster has instead created a paranoid mood piece that captures the absurdism of the year as a whole. What results is a sprawling tale about what happens when multiple interpretations of the truth collide, becoming completely untethered from reality in the process.
The globe seemed to crack in two during that year, with everyone being forced into heightened bubbles that exaggerated all our worst fears and anxieties about the world, living in private echo chambers both online and in real life that divided us even further. Given his surrealist tendencies, Aster is the perfect person to capture this fractured state, with Eddington focusing on a fragile melting pot of characters who have constructed their own ideologies to cope with pain and uncertainty, detaching from collective truths and being blinkered from other perspectives as a result of the pandemic and enabling nature of the digital age.
The film works best when Aster focuses on what happens when these perspectives collide and our internal echo chambers explode in the real world, exploring the blatant absurdity of performative activism, conspiracy theorists and the spread of misinformation as people create versions of the truth that best suit their own interests and image.
The first half of the movie captures the overstimulation of a jarring time in which everyone seemed to be on opposing ends of the spectrum and we grew increasingly disconnected form each other, with people beginning to find holes in our history and look for new ways to explain the world around us, no matter how far-fetched and non-sensical. People debated the moon landing, the attack on the twin towers, the source of Covid-19 and medical facts that scientists have proven over hundreds of years. Everything and nothing mattered, with Aster using his satirical gaze to critique the gaping chasm that has grown between us as different realities erupt all around.
Eddington is most powerful when it leans into this absurdity, creating a snapshot of a moment in time that forever altered our world and permanently severed the idea of common truth. I admire Aster for even attempting to tackle this subject matter. Still, the picture does take a nosedive towards the end. It falters around the third act, abandoning what was most interesting about the first half and opting for a Tarantino-esque ending that dwindles into a predictable murder sub-plot.
Despite the underwhelming ending, it might just be my favourite from Aster’s entire filmography, purely because he goes where no one else dares, desperately trying to bring us back to reality and show how we are all completely beyond ourselves.
