Thriller craftsman Ari Aster bends the mind with his fourth feature, Eddington, where satire and dark comedy spiral into an extreme clash of power dynamics and social media dependency, presented this year as MIFF’s Special Preview film.
With over 15 different program sections, the Melbourne International Film Festival presents an array of films each year, and the gala and special event remains one of its most celebrated highlights, featuring contemporary cinemas from across the world. Among the chosen films in 2025 is the nerve wrecking 2025 Cannes nominated film Eddington, an astounding showcase which competed for the Palme d’Or that you won’t want to look away from.
Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) isn’t content with how the town of Eddington is dealing with the COVID pandemic, especially with mask-wearing requirements under state mandate. His wife, Louise Cross (Emma Stone), has a personal mental health issue ruining her state of mind that wants to detach her from any form of stress and instability, followed by his mother-in-law (Deirdre O’Connell) who pulls herself fully in conspiracy theories and unverified news. Joe believes in the freedom of expression and living of self-life, which prompts to hold a grudge towards the mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) who commits to the mandate seriously. As things start to escalate between both parties due to alteration of opinions and emerging tensions, Sheriff Cross decides to stand on a contested mayor election to go against Garcia, slowly turning a simmering hazard into a major catastrophe.
The everlasting thriller preacher, Ari Aster, has always been meticulous with his works to offer farfetched, distressing yet ultra immersive films that ranges from family dysfunctionality to folklore and severe psychological interventions. Here, Aster attempts to emphasize on the darker side of inadaptability and freedom-seeking extremisms, which he crafts as a satire in a form of mutual attraction among society – an ongoing phenomenon that has swept the nation to go against each other. Aster brilliantly inverses the sarcasm to showcase the conceivable realities behind unexplainable occurrences and disturbing violence that provokes rifts, with the dependency towards technology and social media attention. It is as if Aster gives a plausible meaning and reason to all the chaos of the world and compresses it into a film which ranges from exploitation of information, to the role of opportunists, the backslash of racism, the process of manipulation versus escapism and the societal transformation due to political instability.
In addition to that, Aster also has always been a mastermind to utilize the diversity of talents in good use for each of the characters of the film, and it is not a surprise that here, we could witness the nuances of Joaquin Phoenix (a pinch of Beau Wassermann from Beau is Afraid is present), Emma Stone (Bella Baxter from Poor Things can be felt) and Pedro Pascal (the upcoming favorite star) in perfect measure. A silent power dynamics battle gets played on the surface, giving a vibe of Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master without the vulgarity and a constant push of slow poison that takes its time to furnish into an explosion.
Eddington impresses the line of cinema through its western darkness that acts as a disruptor of typical cinema in every form, and that somehow places Ari Aster as a modern craftsman against normality. The film may be euphoric by breaking from the tired composition of power plays, yet it showcases the epitome of surpassing limitations where when it is pressed against its will, it rolls the dice of extremism and consequences to go as an unsolvable puzzle. A mockery at its best, Aster’s Eddington is unfearful, extravagant and manipulative – a blessing of modern cinema.
