Le Monde’s Verdict – Must See
Just as American cinema seemed to have lost its critical edge, Ari Aster has dived straight into the heart of the divide threatening the fabric of the nation – the specter of secession again looming over the bald eagle, the symbol of the United States. As part of a new wave of horror filmmakers (Hereditary in 2018, followed by Midsommar in 2019), the gifted 39-year-old protégé of the independent studio A24 has, with his fourth feature, revived the kind of skepticism that characterized New Hollywood in the 1970s/
With Eddington, Aster has continued the rejection of genre conventions that he began with Beau Is Afraid (2023), now moving toward a psychiatric fable of deep darkness conceived at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. Through a satire that spares no one, he channels a sense of contemporary nihilism, where grotesque excesses and enormity now bite into the horrifying Trump-era circus.
Eddington is a small town in New Mexico, introduced with a lingering shot of its municipal sign. In May 2020, public health measures deliver the final blow to a social contract and civil harmony already badly eroded. The main fault line runs between the sheriff, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) – a lackluster guardian of order, asthmatic and resistant to mask-wearing – and the mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), a classic liberal adept at public relations and political networking. As the elections approach, the sheriff launches a campaign against the mayor and his plan to build a predatory data center – a clash between patriotic common sense and a disconnected political elite.
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