Do We Want Movies About COVID?
I don't know how to write about Eddington.
I still think the defining piece of COVID-era content is and will forever be Bo Burnham’s Inside, a documentary(?)/drama/musical created by an internet-poisoned artist depicting an individual’s deteriorating mental health while stuck in a claustrophobic space.
Although one of my favorite movies of 2021, I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch it in full in the years since. I’ve listened to some of the music here and there, but it’s tough to psych yourself up to watch something that’ll put you fully in the pandemic headspace … especially when so much of 2020 and 2021 was to think of things that would get you out of it.
Hey, what can you say? We were overdue
But it'll be over soon, you wait
Hey, what can you say? We were overdue
But it'll be over soon, just wait
Ba-da-da, ba-da-da, ba-da-da-da-dum
Yeah, it’s basically 87 minutes of that. So you can see why I’m not chomping at the bit to throw that on during a random weeknight.
Of course, COVID’s still out there—get your vaccinations, everyone—but it’s been four or five years since the peak, which means we’re probably due to get a deluge of movies and shows about the pandemic … well, maybe not actually. Since no one wants to think about that time at all, let alone spend years of their lives making art about something no one wants to remember.
Which is why it makes so much sense that horror-thriller provocateur Ari Aster decided to make a 145-minute Nashville-esque epic featuring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone and Austin Butler that starts with the jumpscare of all jumpscares: Late May 2020.
Like Aster’s previous movies—Beau is Afraid, Hereditary and my beloved Midsommar—Eddington is as much a dark comedy as it is thriller. And it’s these moments that work the best for me.
I don’t know if you remember much about 2020—I try not to—but everything was so fucked in a way that almost feels fictionalized. We had that guy in office making inane statements and confusing everyone, the internet began to mobilize against mask mandates because everyone was on social media too much and we were all confused about what the hell was happening and how far “six feet away” meant. Then, right as everyone was in peak acrimony, there was the murder of George Floyd, which led to police-brutality protests and the fallout from that.
It’s almost cinematic in its overwhelmingness and outrageousness, which feels like the backbone of Aster’s Eddington.
It’s the thinnest of tightropes to walk on, but I would say that Aster mostly nails it, at least on the comedic side of things. From the well-meaning but kinda confused protesters to masks falling off your nose to people diving down rabbit holes because they’re stuck inside too long to everyone deciding that they need to record every single thing happening in front of them, Eddington sometimes feels like a documentary of a small New Mexican town turned microcosm to the rest of the United States during this time.
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Like Beau is Afraid (which has a first hour I’ll swear by), Eddington loses steam in the last third, where the “conspiracy” reaches a breaking point and things turn to a well-shot but kind of meandering chase, shootout.
To be fair, I have no clue how I would’ve ended the movie, but I also wouldn’t have written a movie about the pandemic and the chaos that stemmed during 2020. It’s a difficult thing to do, especially with all of the hot-button topics Aster seems so excited to dip his toe in.
I’m very curious to see how this movie grows, as I doubt there will be anything else like it over the next few years. It’s a real snapshot of a time no one wants a snapshot of, and the fact that it’s full of well-known and memorable faces is almost jarring.
The reviews have been mixed to say the least, but it seems noteworthy that fellow directors like Martin Scorsese, Guillermo del Toro and Bill Hader are all proclaiming Eddington as a masterpiece. In the same way that some artists are your musicians’ favorite musicians, Aster’s last two tricky films feel like they could be classified under a director’s director.
It’s not often that you get a del Toro review like: “Ari Aster’s got big balls, man.” Scorsese said as much in an interview with the New York Times for an Aster profile:
This film was remarkable for me on different levels. The second time I saw it I noticed the technical artistry behind it. The first time I didn’t know what it was about, nobody had told me anything about it. I was impressed by the language of it which was so unique and so original. The risk-taking is so unique and so powerful and there aren’t many filmmakers who can’t do that on that level today.
It externalizes the emotional violence behind it. “Eddington” dives right into the side of American life that many people can’t bear to look at or even acknowledge — no one wants to listen to anyone else, which is frightening. -NYT
Do I recommend this movie? I guess so? I definitely enjoyed it, even with the exhausting denouement, but I can’t imagine myself sitting down to watch this again on a quiet afternoon.
There’s a reason you’re not seeing movie after movie about peak COVID. You gotta respect the “big balls” on Aster, and yet, I totally understand if you skip this one for your own sanity.
In summation, to answer the headline question above: No. Definitely no.
Ari Aster, please go back to your more relaxing, very chill movies, which have featured decapitations, a girl drinking toxic paint and a temple aflame with a paralyzed man stuffed into a disemboweled bear's body. Somehow, that’s all easier to watch than being forced to remember peak COVID.