{"id":3791,"date":"2025-07-18T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/eddington-ari-asters-miserabilism-gets-in-the-way-of-a-promising-social-satire\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T15:00:00","slug":"eddington-ari-asters-miserabilism-gets-in-the-way-of-a-promising-social-satire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/eddington-ari-asters-miserabilism-gets-in-the-way-of-a-promising-social-satire\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Eddington\u2019: Ari Aster\u2019s Miserabilism Gets in the Way of a Promising Social Satire"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/07\/eddington.jpg\" width=\"\" height=\"\" alt=\"Joaquin Phoenix in a scene from 'Eddington' (Courtesy of A24)\"><\/figure>\n<p>Paul Haggis\u2019 <em>Crash <\/em>(2004) is a shallow film; its characters nothing more than reductive racial tropes colliding into and screaming epithets at one another. Somehow, the film defied the odds and beat out the heavily favored <em>Brokeback Mountain <\/em>to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Two decades and one pandemic later, perhaps the time is ripe for an updated version of <em>Crash<\/em>. But who would have guessed that Ari Aster was the man for the job?<\/p>\n<p>Best known for his well-regarded horror movies, <em>Hereditary <\/em>(2018) and <em>Midsommar <\/em>(2019), Aster split viewers with his confounding third feature film, <em>Beau is Afraid <\/em>(2023). Starring Joaquin Phoenix as its title character, <em>Beau is Afraid <\/em>was a three-hour, ambitious, and overindulgent mess that stuffs every sort of fear and neurosis into its protracted runtime. Despite being lauded by filmmakers like Robert Eggers, John Waters, and Martin Scorsese, <em>Beau is Afraid <\/em>bombed, grossing only $11 million on a $35 million budget.<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/07\/wu-tang-clan-final-tour-guests\/\">Wu-Tang Clan Wind Down \u2018Final\u2019 Tour With Guest Stars<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/07\/5-albums-i-cant-live-without-dan-sugarman-of-ice-nine-kills\/\">5 Albums I Can\u2019t Live Without: Dan Sugarman of Ice Nine Kills<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/07\/jakob-nowell-was-born-for-this\/\">Jakob Nowell Was Born For This<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<lite-youtube videoid=\"q-yUOB-ZFXc\" style=\"bottom: 0; height: 100%; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; width: 100%; max-width:100%;\"><\/lite-youtube>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>The plot of <em>Eddington, <\/em>Aster\u2019s latest film, sounds like more of a sure bet on paper. Set in a small New Mexico town in 2020, the film centers on a rivalry between its sheriff, Joe Cross (Phoenix again), and mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) igniting into a full-blown culture war. Like <em>Beau is Afraid<\/em>, <em>Eddington <\/em>runs too long at 149 minutes and goes completely off the rails in its third act. Worst of all, the film\u2019s \u201cthere are bad people on both sides\u201d political message is muddled at best in its tonal inconsistency.<\/p>\n<p>Think of any trope from today\u2019s culture wars\u2014it likely appears in <em>Eddington<\/em>. A lawman who thinks he\u2019s above the law. People who believe they don\u2019t have to wear a mask despite a statewide mandate. White BLM protesters who profusely apologize for their privilege. Conspiracy theorists who insist others do their own research. Talk of \u201chouseless individuals,\u201d pedophiles in positions of power, stolen land. One do-gooder whose mask slips down every time she speaks. Gun nuts. Crazed Antifa murderers. And looming over all this siloed mania, a potential data center the governor wants to build near Eddington that could siphon away the town\u2019s drinking water.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Like his other work, <em>Eddington <\/em>proves that Aster is a technically excellent filmmaker. He is responsible for some of the most indelible, arresting images and physically uncomfortable moments of the past seven years. But <em>Eddington <\/em>also shows us that Aster doesn\u2019t know when to end things, as it drags through multiple false endings. Worst of all, at this point, it\u2019s fair to call Aster a miserabilist, one who not only has little faith in humanity but appears to enjoy torturing his characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As a social experiment, it would be interesting to watch <em>Eddington <\/em>in a theater in Portland, Oregon, and then again in a cinema somewhere in rural Texas. Both sides of the political spectrum will find something to laugh at, something to be enraged by. But as a social satire, <em>Eddington <\/em>feels superficial, especially as it devolves into a violent third act. <em>The New York Times <\/em>recently anointed Bong Joon Ho\u2019s <em>Parasite <\/em>(2019), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2025\/movies\/best-movies-21st-century.html#movie-10\" target=\"_blank\">the best film of the 21st century so far<\/a>. Alternately shocking and comical, the film is a social satire that not only succeeds in tonal shifts but also creates characters we can believe in. With four features to his name, it\u2019s safe to say Aster doesn\u2019t understand how to include that important human element in his work. Otherwise, it all just feels needlessly cruel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Haggis\u2019 Crash (2004) is a shallow film; its characters nothing more than reductive racial tropes colliding into and screaming epithets at one another. Somehow, the film defied the odds&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2739,2493,24,88,2240],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eddington","category-film-review","category-pushly","category-reviews","category-watch-me"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}