While “Superman” soars high this weekend, next weekend may bring disappointment for another film.
Ari Aster’s “Eddington” is coming from A24, and it looks like a big problem.
Despite an all star cast with Joaquin Phoenix and the ubiquitous Pedro Pascal, “Eddington” looks like it will follow Aster’s “Beau is Afraid” into the abyss.
Reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are not friendly. The score so far is 68%. The movie is also two and a half hours long.
The bad reviews are bad.
The Hollywood Reporter: If Hereditary and Midsommar got under the skin with genuinely scary storytelling and startling imagery and Beau is Afraid was equal parts squirmy and maddening, Eddington is just annoying and empty.
Vanity Fair: A better film would tightly synthesize the macro with the micro, but Aster instead lets them hang discordant next to one another, clanging in the desert wind.
Even the ‘fresh’ reviews on Rotten Tomatoes have a kick to them.
New York Magazine: “I didn’t love it — I’m honestly not sure I’d even say I liked it — but it gets at the way our shared reality fractured in ways that may be irreparable, leaving a situation ripe for grifters and opportunists to step in and take over.”
South china Morning Post: “Eddington can be a slog at times, but there’s no doubting Aster has an abundance of ideas about what to say about his nation.”
I’m told by spies that “Eddington” wastes a lot of potential, not to mention name actors, on a social satire about COVID and the lockdown.
Yikes! A24 Studios is very adept at creating cult of personality type following for its indie films even the movies themselves are not good. Ari Aster had two intellectual horror films — “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” — but “Beau is Afraid” fell flat and then some. “Eddington” seems to be going in that direction.
