So, Ari Aster made a movie that people are calling “mean-spirited,” and I’m supposed to be surprised?
Give me a break.
The director who gave us decapitations, pagan cults, and a three-hour anxiety attack starring Joaquin Phoenix made a satirical neo-noir Western set during the COVID lockdown, and the big takeaway is that it’s… unpleasant? That’s like complaining that water is wet. The fact that anyone is shocked by this says more about our collective delusion than it does about Ari Aster or his movies.
Some commenter online said they “hated this movie…I couldn’t finish it.” Good. You probably weren’t supposed to.
The Unflattering Selfie
Let's get the plot summary out of the way. Eddington is about a small-town New Mexico sheriff (Phoenix, again) who decides to run for mayor during the 2020 pandemic. The whole thing is a petri dish for American rot: political polarization, data mining, paranoia, and the complete collapse of a shared reality. Aster himself calls it "diagnostic rather than prescriptive," which is high-minded filmmaker-speak for, "I'm just going to show you how screwed up everything is, and you can deal with the fallout."
And boy, did he. The film premiered at Cannes to a nearly seven-minute standing ovation that supposedly brought Phoenix to tears, while simultaneously dividing audiences and critics right down the middle. A 69% from critics, 65% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. That split isn't a sign of failure; it's the entire point. The movie is a Rorschach test for a fractured nation. It’s not a story we all watch together; it’s an inkblot we all see differently, confirming our own biases before we start screaming at the other side for seeing something else.
What did you expect? A unifying message of hope? In an Ari Aster movie set in 2020?
The film's meaning allegedly changed day-to-day during editing based on real-world headlines. This isn't some profound artistic process. It's triage. It’s like trying to paint a portrait of a person who is actively on fire. The final image is bound to be a little chaotic, a little messy, and deeply unsettling. So when I see someone online arguing it should be in the Best Picture race for its political relevance, I don't even disagree. Not because it’s a masterpiece—I'm not even sure what that word means anymore—but because it's an accurate, ugly snapshot of the moment. It’s the cultural selfie we don’t want to post, but it’s the one in our camera roll.
The Problem with "Challenging" Art
Here’s the thing about Ari Aster. He’s not a horror filmmaker. He’s a discomfort filmmaker. And with the backing of a studio like A24, he’s been able to make his last two films, Beau Is Afraid and Eddington, with "almost no compromise."
This is great for him. For us? I’m not so sure.
This is artistic integrity. No, 'integrity' doesn't cover it—this is artistic indulgence. He says the focus on aggregate scores has been "disastrous for challenging films." ‘Eddington’ Director Ari Aster Looks Back On His Visionary Satire: “It’s About Where We Are” - Deadline. Offcourse he does. His movies are practically designed to get a C- CinemaScore. He’s aiming for inscrutability, for something that challenges everyone, regardless of their politics. But when you challenge everyone, are you really saying anything profound, or are you just yelling static and calling it a statement? Is it a diagnosis, or just more noise pollution?
It reminds me of the whole crypto grift. Everyone’s trying to sell you on some new aster coin or aster token, promising it’s the future, that it has some deep, intrinsic aster meaning. But when you press them on what it actually is, you get a bunch of jargon and a vague promise of disruption. It’s all speculation on an abstract value. What is aster? It’s whatever you can convince someone else it is. These "challenging" films feel a bit like that. They operate on a kind of intellectual hype, where their value isn't in their substance but in their perceived complexity.
Frankly, I’m exhausted by it. I don’t need a movie to be a puzzle box of alienation. Sometimes I just want to watch something that isn’t trying to give me a panic attack about the state of the world. Then again, maybe I'm the crazy one for wanting an escape when the house is burning down. Maybe the only honest art right now is the kind that rubs salt in the wound. He wants to diagnose America, but maybe he's just another symptom...
So We Got the Movie We Deserve
Let’s be real. The reason Eddington is so divisive is because it’s honest. It’s a bitter, cynical, and "mean-spirited" film because we are living in a bitter, cynical, and mean-spirited time. It doesn't offer a solution because there isn't an easy one. It just holds up a cracked mirror, and we’re all pissed off at the reflection. The film isn't the disease; it's a symptom, a fever dream born from a sick patient. And if you walked out of the theater feeling angry and exhausted, well, congratulations. You were paying attention.
