Eddington

The thing is, it’s the spring of 2020 in the town, and the coronavirus pandemic, with its primal fear and government restrictions, has driven the residents indoors. Only the supermarkets show signs of life — and even that is limited to heated arguments about mask-wearing and social distancing in lines.

It seems that all the gods have abandoned Eddington at once. Christian morality has been replaced by a raw struggle for survival, while the Native spirits inhabiting the nearby lands are clearly displeased with their quarrelsome neighbor. And for the most part, it’s the conservative sheriff and the liberal mayor who keep adding fuel to the fire.

Joe Cross has been patrolling the neighborhoods of Eddington for years and knows every local drunk and troublemaker. He refuses to wear a mask because of his asthma and supports everyone who resists the mayor’s decrees. And when yet another old man is denied entry to a store for failing to follow safety rules, only the sheriff can stand up for him.

Ted Garcia, in turn, hasn’t been running the town for as long, but with his charisma and vision for the future, he has almost secured himself a second term. He gently urges people to follow the regulations, but he does so more out of concern for his own reputation than for the townspeople’s health. Thus, two sides of good intentions clash in an irreconcilable struggle.

Over the past five years, the world has changed so much that Ari Aster’s movie “Eddington” now feels more like a historical study than a relevant social statement. The main characters differ sharply in their political views, and even though their conflict stems from good intentions, it still erupts into a brutal feud.

Joe’s wife is going through hard times, but she drowns her psychological troubles in social media and communication with online gurus. Her mother, meanwhile, dives deep into all kinds of conspiracy theories. And the youth of Eddington, not understanding where the world is heading, repost naïve radical messages calling for decisive action against any injustice.

In a time of such large-scale upheavals, people desperately search for answers to endless questions, but it’s not the truthful voices that stand out — it’s the loudest ones. Those who offer simple solutions — hatred and condemnation of dissenters — come to the forefront. In an instant, a society that once coexisted peacefully and debated important issues has armed itself with malice against supporters of opposing views.

Ari Aster explores the origins of the fragmentation of yesterday’s society, from whose remnants today’s world has emerged. It now seems as though humanity is no longer capable of reaching a compromise on any issue — great or small. And according to the director, it was the isolation of the pandemic that became the first step toward this civil war.

Of course, in the hands of the “Midsommar” director, the conflict spills into blood long before the characters reach full radicalization. In this sense, “Eddington” echoes Alex Garland’s “Civil War”, where American society uses violence to construct an environment in which one side is left with no room to argue.

And the issue raised by “Eddington” is not only the story of the eternal struggle between political parties in the United States, but also a reflection on the impossibility of compromise in today’s radicalized society. If one side chooses violence, the response will always be even greater brutality, leading to a pervasive sense of danger.

In his most grounded film, Ari Aster shows that the worst decision in such a situation is to succumb to the echo of slogans pulling everyone further away from the path of peace. In an era of global access to information, the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff is as vital a skill as the instinct for self-preservation. After all, there’s no shortage of peddlers of cheap lies and hatred, neatly packaged as simple answers.