I’ve just read the 148-page script for Ari Aster’s “Eddington.” The film wrapped production last month in New Mexico. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward and Clifton Collins Jr.
Firstly, those rumors that it’s a zombie movie are totally false. It’s a straight up pandemic-set western with loads of 2020 politics. In fact, a lot of the script is driven by divisive Red vs Blue dialogue. Aster doesn’t necessarily take any side; he just shows how deranged all of the people are.
“Eddington” has been described as an “ensemble film,” and it sort of is, but the film is really about the rivalry between Sheriff Joe Cross (Phoenix) and local mayor Ted Garcia (Pascal). Sparks fly when Joe decides to run for mayor of Eddington after he refuses to wear a face mask at the local grocery store. Ted isn’t happy as he was led to believe he’d be running unopposed (“I got this gringo pig runnin’ against me”).
Garcia is well-off, with a big house, and there are suspicions that he might be corrupt. Sherriff Joe, a staunch conservative, believes Garcia’s using the pandemic restrictions to purposely destroy businesses (“He got plans to replace every shop here with server farms”).
The town itself seems to be evenly split between left and right ideologies. Aster slyly inserts the 2020 BLM protests/riots as background to the whole story. As he campaigns, and accuses Garcia of raping his former girlfriend, Joe finds it an impossible task to calm down the protestors.
Sherriff Joe mentions ANTIFA and George Soros, a bunch of times, he believes they are instigating the riots and protests. At some point, he decides that his anti-mask mayoral campaign slogan should be “I Can’t Breathe” — absolutely clueless. It’s a very amusing script, and I couldn’t put it down. I kept reading.
The script has a slew of references to Hilary Clinton, Anthony Fauci, mask mandates, George Floyd and Trump. Also, Tucker Carlson’s show seems to be playing in the background in a few scenes. The film is also going to be likely very violent. I won’t give away anything here, and I’ve only given you the bare minimum in terms of plot, but almost no character is safe in Aster’s story.
The script reads like one big fat metaphor about the current state of the country, tackling the divisive and venomous polarization that’s been going on these last few years. There’s a lot of potential for a good movie, but it’s a WILD mix of things and I’m very curious to see how Aster puts it all together on screen.
Aster (“Hereditary” and “Midsommar”) is coming off last year’s polarizing “Beau is Afraid.” A24 has produced all three of his films so far, and “Eddington” will be their fourth collaboration together.