“Eddington”, neo-western about the polarized present and the neuroses of the USA

Title: Eddington

Original title: Eddington

Regia: Ari Aster

Country of production / year / duration: United States / 2025 / 148 min.

Screenplay: Ari Aster

Photograph: Darius Khondji

Assembly: Lucian Johnston

Sound: Bobby Krlić, Daniel Pemberton

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Austin Butler, Emma Stone, Luke Grimes

Production: A24, Square Peg

Distribution: I Wonder Pictures

Programming: Lo Schermo Bianco (Lab80), Notorious Cinema Curno, UCI Cinemas Orio, Arcadia Stezzano, Starplex Romano di Lombardia, Treviglio AnteospazioCinema

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3LIBeswdrw

A shapeless chaos which, with its centrifugal force, polarizes opposites, through an imagery that interprets the neuroses and paranoia of our time. Ideological polarizations that lead to the grotesque, those of “Eddington” by Ari Aster, at the cinema from 17 October.

A clash of opposites is what materializes in the (fictional) town of the same name in New Mexico, between the local sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) and the mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal). The elections are approaching and the debate between the two candidates is developing through a dangerous escalation, in a local political confrontation that is also a reflection of (real) national tensions. Citizens thus find themselves against each other, in a spiral of fear that leads to a common crisis. A universal comparison that fell into current affairs, in May 2020, in a period of lockdown and masks, but also of the outbreak of the Black Lives Matter movement.

A polarization that takes things to the extreme, to the point of the grotesque, with continuous references from the singular to the plural. We are on the side of the Coens and Lanthimos, starting with Emma Stone (who seems to come directly from “Kinds of Kindness” by the Greek director), interpreter of Louise, the object of dispute between the two men. From this, the rest arises. Sheriff Joe Cross embodies the most extreme traditionalism, mirror of a certain republican wing, skeptical of anything that can disturb the established order of his town, while Ted represents more progressive positions, with faith in politics but, above all, in technology: he will be the one to commit to the construction of a new data center for AI, against citizen protests, also fueled by fake news. Two opposites that become respective bulwarks of the opposing demands that affect the town, openly part of the United States as a whole.

Ari Aster brings in front of the camera, in a grainy western landscape, the pandemic and Black Lives Matter, American elections with its divisions, QAnon, extreme political activism, social networks, conspiracy theories and fake news, cryptocurrencies and weapons. All without a solution of continuity, a hurricane that shows an urgency (even thematic) in wanting to draw an image of contemporaneity. Images made of extremes and extremisms, shown in a vortex of continuous tension which however leads to the grotesque.

An action video game aesthetic, in which every fixed point seems to vanish, every confrontation is just a piece of a puzzle that finds meaning in its disintegration. “Eddington” thus becomes a neo-Western, a description of a frontier territory in the desert landscape of New Mexico, which becomes a centre, a geographical Far West which flows into a Far West of ideologies and ideas.

A territory that seeks a future, but which seems destined for an eternal present, confined by a sum of the paranoias of our time. A geographical catalyst of extremism that often risks resulting in a cauldron of issues addressed with the weapon of satire without, therefore, dissecting its content. A simplification that always seems on the verge of nullifying any food for thought.

In this simplification and, at times, trivialisation, we can perhaps find a tangible comparison with an (also) identity crisis which takes the place of the search for empty refuges of populist ideas, a symptom of an anger under the skin of a restless present which sees (literally) shattered the skeleton on which the United States is supported.

A present well described by cinema (think also of “One battle after another” by Paul Thomas Anderson), with an urgency that sometimes goes to the detriment of the form to become, paradoxically, itself a mirror of the crisis. A cinematic image that seems to collapse on itself, a compass and victim of contemporary neuroses. An image that risks being reflected in his conceit, but in revealing a chaos (even of the imagination) that is now impossible to ignore.