Ben Mistry Spoiler Warning: Read At Your Own Discretion
Eddington (Ari Aster, 2025), potentially one of the most polarizing films of the year, offers a bleak, microscopic look into the socio-political landscape of the US during COVID; however, 5 years on, the US is still dealing with the political fallout of the time. With partisanship soaring, it raises the question as to whether films such as this should be holding up a mirror to the issues without offering any kind of reconciliation for society. Some may see this as a dangerous supposition as it reinforces affective polarization, yet by presenting this sobering reality in the first half of the film (with a heavy layer of chaos added in the second) it produces a call to arms that places responsibility with its audience over of the filmmaker.
Political polarization
Though Ari Aster is not new to thematically frightening his audiences; from grief, guilt, and familial estrangement in Hereditary (2018) and psychological trauma in Beau is Afraid (2021), Eddington is Aster’s first mainstream release that comes at its audience with a politically hyper-sensitive topic that will likely still feel raw in the minds of his viewers. In doing so, Aster draws attention to his subject matter by foregrounding recognition of what has become political norms and neglecting relatability regarding affective polarization by taking these norms to their extremes. Subsequently, Aster asks his audience to reflect on the absurdity of what they are presented with. At the forefront of the narrative is mayoral candidates Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) and Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) whose campaigns against one another fall into an intense personality battle with fatal consequences as the COVID pandemic rages on in the background. Cross personifies the right-wing, discouraging social distancing, peaceful protests, denying the pandemic even exists, and embodying political violence, whilst Garcia is seen as the all-too passive option – the bureaucrat who can’t affect any real change with severe in-fighting in his party. While these two play caricatures of the political spectrum, as most fictional governments do, they capture a distinct dichotomy within society. This strict dichotomy between left and right consequently places the audience in between the two ensuring that they are not swayed to any side, thus alienating his two protagonists. In this respect Aster doesn’t want his audience to relate to the characters of either Cross or Garcia as is typically a staple of narrative cinema. Rather, Aster creates affect by producing two dislikable characters that ignites some area of either the conscious or unconscious mind that will drive its host to some kind of thought-provocation. This isn’t about forcing the audience to some form of physical activism but rather into thinking how effectively the system they are living in is working, and if they want to make that change how to, and not to do that. Specifically, Aster is commenting on the issues of the digital age in the US. Using Cross as a symbol for the dangers of the immediacy of social media, Aster stresses the importance of being cautious of our digital footprint and the power that social media holds in a fragile socio-political landscape.
Digital age
It’s no secret that during the technical revolution of the last 20 years social media has been one of the most influential creations. Aster takes this and once more gives a hauntingly accurate depiction of the power that social media holds with no consideration of how to deal with it. He shows how easy it is for misinformation to be spread in this digital age and how the people using it, adults and young adults alike, aren’t aware of the power that they are beholden to. He does this primarily by showing the immediacy of spreading information and how easy it is for it to plant ideas in our heads that fester into dangerous conspiracies. Sheriff Joe Cross is a man new to social media, but the spread of misinformation has been rife in his house since the opening of the film. The interior shots of Cross’ house almost all have a droning sound in the back of it – the sound of cult leader Vernon Jefferson-Peak’s (Austin Butler) voice, telling his audience to embrace their trauma and disregard their shame. Picked up by Cross’ wife, Louise (Emma Stone), she runs off with Jefferson-Peak and becomes a member of the cult. As an isolated incident this doesn’t seem like too much more than indoctrination from listening to the wrong website for too long. However, what this continuous sound does is infest in Cross the power of the internet. As a result, Cross, after a run-in with Garcia, decides to make a video in which he announces he is spontaneously running for mayor. As part of this video Cross denies that the pandemic is real, and elicits a form of McCarthyism as he questions whether it is ‘worth it to combat a virus, that isn’t even here, at the cost of being at war with your neighbours? And your family?’. Directly combatting the rhetoric of Garcia, Cross attracts his following based on pure manipulation and further polarizes the town. By putting into question the validity of the pandemic Cross incites a whole other kind of conspiracy that encourages a disillusionment from reality, forcing another wedge into society. Yet by throwing this live grenade into an already unstable society and Cross making himself a public figure, Aster is commenting on not only the immediate impact of social media, but who is using it and how. The immediacy is what Aster is warning his audiences about in terms of lacking critical thought and how, in their action in speaking out against political injustice that he is calling for, they ensure they understand how far this messaging can go. Once again, this moment in which Cross runs for mayor isn’t one which the audience are meant to relate to but rather recognise as an all too familiar reality. His primary warning is that with no checks on how social media is being used by public figures, there is a chance that society falls into anarchic chaos as the second half of his film does.
It all descends into chaos (Conclusion)
The narrative descent into chaos is punctuated by Garcia’s death at the hands of Cross. Only being approximately halfway through the film Cross looks to have beaten his political opponent, only then to fall to the unidentified, ‘anti-fascist’ group that subsequently comes after him, resulting in Cross being stabbed and left paralyzed. The lack of any overall winner between the two of them, or what some may see as conclusion, is determinative to whether audiences are called to action with the aim for them to oppose any kind of political violence. The hyper-stylized action that comes as a result is an obvious embellishment to make a point that chaos is inevitable in the political landscape that we are currently in. However, Aster’s key point behind all of this is that in no situation does wider society win. They are left as alone by politicians as they were in the first place, this time with a third party (a corporation) taking over using the now paraplegic Cross as the face of their seizure of power. This time, by placing the audience in the middle of the two Aster subverts the audience’s attention towards the extremity of the polarity that they are faced with and demand a more mediated political landscape. Seeing how political violence is utilised and then manipulated by politicians should have brought an awareness to the screen of the current political climate. However, it clearly has not.
It is at this point that Aster has planted his foot as far as he is willing to go, and in doing so relies on his audiences to recognise their position in affecting change; not for them to choose either side but rather work together to end the absurdity of such unprecedented polarity. Unfortunately, as far as the film goes to warn its viewers of the dangers they are currently facing, and coming to face, it hasn’t managed to break through as of yet. Being a rather polarizing film itself, it may not gain the recognition it deserves until it is too late. Though how the film comments on political movements, police brutality, race, homelessness, and countless other socio-political themes have been left unmentioned to keep this essay on point, it desires to show in minute detail how vast this topic can be. Aster ensures that he is not the vessel through which change will occur, but rather he is another who has pointed out that change needs to occur. The extremities in which the film puts in front of its audience have frighteningly come to life and whether or not you’d like it to, film cannot do all the work for us.
