Ari Aster's Eddington Is Missing The One Thing That Makes Me Obsessed With His Other Movies

SPOILER WARNING: The following article may contain a few light spoilers for Eddington. If you have not yet seen the new 2025 movie, just follow the safety protocols, proceed with caution, and you should be just fine.

It had been a long time since I tensed up at the sound of a person (actually multiple people) coughing in a movie theater like I did when I saw Eddington, a neo-Western set in the COVID-19 era that discusses other distressing topics prevalent in 2020. I must admit, though, that those curious coincidences were, just about, the most potent sense of tension throughout most of the film for me.

To be clear, I really enjoyed the new A24 movie, believing it is an effectively bizarre and maddening portrait of contemporary America, anchored by great performances from Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, and many more. Yet, it left me wanting more, and in a distinct and personal way, especially knowing that it comes from writer and director Ari Aster. Allow me to explain…

I Wanted Eddington To Be Darker

Ari Aster is one of my favorite filmmakers working today. I believe he is responsible for not just some of the best A24 horror movies yet, but some of the absolute best horror movies in recent memory with 2018’s Hereditary, 2019’s Midsommar, and even Beau is Afraid, which was not everyone’s bag, but was my favorite film of 2023.

What these films have in common is that, immediately after seeing them, they each left me with a deeply unsettled feeling in my very core that I struggled to shake for days, which is something I have come to appreciate and anticipate from Aster. However, Eddington was the first film of his to not have that effect on me.

Don't get me wrong: the movie has plenty of undeniably shocking moments, but it is easily Aster’s most tame film so far. That might come as a relief to some, but not so much to me, and for the reasons above. I am not exactly sure myself how he could have crafted a darker story that would have remained faithful to his vision, but I also have little doubt that someone of his twisted imagination could have conjured something more in line with the enduring bleakness of his past efforts, especially when commenting on such a traumatic and divisive time in United States history.

On The Flip Side, I'd Call Eddington Ari Aster's Funniest Movie

I have always believed it is important, when forming an opinion about any piece of art, to consider the opposition. There have even been times, to better understand the mindset of those who may disagree with me, when I found myself developing a full-scale argument against my own feelings, and I ended up having one of these experiences with Eddington.

While the film lacks the ferociously dark tone I have come to associate with Aster, in retrospect, I actually think it might have been in his best interest to dial back a bit on the shock factor for the sake of calling it a dark comedy movie. In the past, I have heard a lot of people say they felt unsure if they were supposed to be laughing at some of the content in his previous films, despite how Aster once described Midsommar as folk horror with the “trajectory of a high school comedy” to The Atlantic.

However, the satirical humor in his latest is completely unambiguous and, if you ask me, results in the filmmaker’s most effective comedy yet, and I even include the demented absurdity of the Beau is Afraid ending in that conversation. That being said, had Aster gone even darker with his already eye-opening interpretation of tumultuous real-life events in Eddington, I imagine that the humorous tone would have been deemed in poor taste.

If you expected me to get more political about this very political film, I am afraid you came to the wrong writer. While I do admire the way Eddington holds a mirror up to society, I always judge films of this kind by the artistic execution of their content first and foremost. In that regard, while I would call it my least favorite Ari Aster movie yet, I think it is one of the best A24 movies I have seen so far this year.