New York City’s mayoral primary made national headlines this week, but one can only imagine the sort of breathless reporting that would have swarmed around Eddington, New Mexico’s, if the town and mayoral race at the center of Ari Aster’s new film had been real. Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani didn’t slap each other in the face, at least as far as this writer knows.
Incumbent Eddington Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) and new mayoral candidate Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) sure did, but some light face slapping is the least of their worries in the intense new clip. It’s 2020, and all that that implies is absolutely in play here. The action really kicks off, however, when a family is murdered on Pueblo tribal ground, igniting a powder keg of protests, violence, and very tense Zoom calls.
Soon, Joe’s wife Louise (Emma Stone), Louise’s mother (Deirdre O’Connell), an officer at the Eddington sheriff’s office (Luke Grimes), a young trainee (Michael Ward), and a character who appears to be some sort of online conspiracy theorist (Austin Butler) get pulled into the fray as “neighbor is pitted against neighbor” in the avalanching conflict.
This film isn’t going to be for everyone, but if “escapism to an (arguably) even worse time” is your cup of tea, then you should whip up a cup of dalgona coffee, warm up a slice of banana bread, and grab a ticket. You may just want to book it at least 6 feet away from any other movie-goers for the full immersive experience. Eddingtonopens July 18 in theaters.