Eddington

Aster said Eddington was "just a story about a datacenter." It sounds like he's being glib, but at the end of the film, after he tells his story set amidst the sturm and drang over COVID, lockdowns, protests, and the collective hysteria we all went through in 2020, he's basically right. In the film's closing shot, that's what we're left with.

The key events in the movie aren't even all that related to COVID — at most, the pandemic is an accelerant to the brewing personal drama between our key characters, and to the sense of disunity already being stoked on the internet. The drama was bound to blow up eventually, pandemic or no.

I thought this movie would be more polemical or annoying, with it's from-the-headlines plotline about such a divisive period. But actually, it's pretty equal-opportunity in its throwing of punches toward everyone involved. Each of the characters goes through their own flavor of psychosis, spurred on by isolation from one another, fear over an unknown virus, and way, way too much connectivity.

There's a slow, methodical setup over the first hour or so, as we get to know all the characters in this small town. We have the pro-lockdown, progressive-coded mayor played by Pedro Pascal, and Joaquin Phoenix's anti-mask, right-leaning county sheriff. Between COVID, the disputes over big tech datacenters, BLM protests, and social media overdosing, you have a nasty cocktail that exacerbates the already-simmering personal disputes that boil over.

It's uneven in its pacing at times, and the tone shifts pretty wildly from act to act, but the performances, staging, cinematography — all top notch. Even with it's flaws, most movies like this would be predictable and preachy. Aster did a commendable job with the right mix if engaging, unsettling, and entertaining.

If there's a moral to the story: we allow ourselves to be coerced and driven crazy by living in our phones. Duped by one another, by companies selling products and ideas, by motivated media outfits, by all manner of liars, scammers, and cheaters out to take advantage of a collective weak sense of agency. As the film implies toward the end, all the violence and chaos that descends upon the town might even have been intentionally whipped up by tech companies themselves, so they can slip in and get their datacenter built.

Phones and social media are the instruments of interference and control. And this datacenter that represents the orchestration of all this discord ends up constructed right under their noses.

We don't have to let ourselves be cajoled into craziness; we're capable of being responsible for ourselves, of noticing we're being manipulated.