Writer and director Ari Aster has made the Covid lockdowns one of the focuses of his latest movie, Eddington, which was released this weekend as part of the 2025 movie schedule. It’s a movie that is meant to make the audience uncomfortable, and in that, it succeeds. As I watched, I just couldn’t help but wonder if Aster, who is known for his horror movies, has taken on too much with this topic.
The late winter and spring of 2020 were an especially hard time for everyone, and in the movie, while Aster deftly walks the political line that divided many in the U.S., it brings up a lot of uncomfortable memories for many. That’s not to mention the second political topic of the movie, the death of George Floyd and the massive protests that followed it in May and June. Eddington has a message, but are we ready to hear it? I don’t think so.
The Political Fight Over Masks Made A Hard Time Harder
I’m not going to get into my own feelings on some of the policies implemented during those early days of the COVID-19 outbreak, except to say that the political sides that were drawn were frustrating and worrisome to me. Many of us were isolated in our homes, worried about the health of the more vulnerable people, worried about our jobs, and worried about how the virus would affect not only our own finances, but the greater economy, not to mention our health.
Then the debate started raging about mask mandates and other public health measures. It made an already scary time even worse, adding an ugly political element to one of the most uncertain times in my lifetime. This is where Eddington, the latest movie from A24, starts, with the town sheriff, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), reaching his breaking point as an asthmatic who is uncomfortable wearing a mask. It eventually leads to Cross running for mayor with an anti-mask mandate message.
The Movie Succeeds In Making Viewers Uncomfortable, But Is That What People Want?
Aster, who has made his name with his dark humor and uncomfortable subjects, certainly isn’t shying away from dividing audiences in Eddington, and it works in a lot of ways. I myself can have a pretty dark sense of humor, and I definitely laughed at some of the ridiculous moments in the film that were based on a reality we all lived through 5 years ago. Still, I couldn’t go all the way with this movie, because thinking back, there wasn’t much that was funny about the state of the world at the time.
After the movie ended, I had a discussion with the person I saw it with, and followed that up with some colleagues here at CinemaBlend, and we all wondered if the entire premise of the movie is just too soon to look back on. The emotions for many people are still pretty raw, and we as a society have not fully gotten closure on those chaotic months.
Mask mandates are long gone, and the COVID-19 virus is rarely talked about anymore, but some of the wounds are still open. Eddington isn’t the kind of movie that helps you process any of it, either. It just plops you right down, back in the middle of it, ripping open the emotional scars some people have.
Or maybe I’m wrong and this is exactly the kind of movie we need to help process those times more. I’ve been thinking about the film for weeks now, so it does succeed in making viewers reflect on those times, which could be a good thing. I don’t think so, though. Not yet.