The Political Trickery of "Eddington"

"A filmmaker who wanted to make a politically contentious movie couldn't do much better than to set it in mid-2020, when the United States, under the covid-19 lockdown and approaching a Presidential election, was tearing itself apart over masking mandates and then over the fallout from the killing of George Floyd. This is precisely what Ari Aster's recent film "Eddington" does, wading with apparent boldness into a slew of issues that remain divisive even five years on."

"Strangely enough, though, if he had removed the covid and protest plotlines entirely, the movie would be more or less the same. Its run time might be shorter, but its emotional essence, thematic core, and even the motivations that drive its characters would remain intact. Although the story is steeped in the practicalities of that moment and the controversies they aroused, it's ultimately driven by something else altogether; namely, sexual humiliation."

"The film is set in New Mexico, in the fictitious title town-population of two thousand four hundred and thirty-five, according to a road sign-where the election year sees the mayor also up for reëlection. The incumbent, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), who lives in upper-middle-class comfort with his teen-age son, Eric (Matt Gomez Hidaka)-and without his ex-wife, who left him long ago-is intent on enforcing the state's mask mandate. His nemesis, who impulsively decides to run against him, is the town's sheriff, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), who is skeptical of masking."

The film is set in New Mexico in 2020 during the covid-19 lockdown and a Presidential election, focusing on local conflict over mask mandates and protests. The incumbent mayor, Ted Garcia, enforces the state's mask mandate while Sheriff Joe Cross opposes masking and impulsively challenges him in the election. The narrative foregrounds sexual humiliation as its primary engine, portraying manosphere attitudes beneath the political posturing. Character dynamics involve Garcia's upper-middle-class domestic life and Cross's cluttered household with his wife Louise and her obsessive mother. Political plotlines of COVID and racial protests function as framing devices rather than the story's emotional or thematic core.

Read at The New Yorker