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I didn’t expect a neo-western, satirical black comedy to land in my top three films of the year, but Eddington surprised me in every way.

Let me start with this. Eddington is not a film you watch casually. You do not just “put it on.” You sit with it. You endure it. You absorb it. And then you sit in silence, blinking, wondering what just happened and why it hit so hard. For me, Ari Aster’s latest descent into the surreal is not just a bold artistic swing. It is the most accurate portrait of modern America I have seen on screen in years. It is satire, yes, but not the kind that lets you off the hook. This is a dark comedy with claws. It digs in. It lingers. It makes you laugh, then asks why you are laughing. And if you have lived through the last five years in this country, you already know the answer.

What makes this experience even more startling is that this was my first time watching a film by Ari Aster. I have not seen Hereditary or Midsommar or anything else he has made. I came into Eddington with no real expectations other than curiosity. I left completely gutted. I now understand why people either revere or recoil from his work. What I saw was something that pushed the boundaries of storytelling. It made me uncomfortable in all the right ways, and it forced me to confront things I would usually rather scroll past or forget.

Set in the fictional New Mexico town of Eddington during the height of the early COVID crisis, the film follows Sheriff Joe Cross, played by Joaquin Phoenix, and Mayor Ted Garcia, played by Pedro Pascal. They are former friends, maybe even former lovers, now bitter opponents. Joe is a portrait of small town defiance, a sheriff who refuses to enforce mandates, lives deep in conspiracy, and walks through town with a gun and a grudge. Ted, on the other hand, is the polished, tech driven mayor who believes in numbers and systems and solutions. Their personal and political rivalry gives the film its backbone, but the real heart of the story is the town around them. A place falling apart under the weight of fear, isolation, and ideology.

What hit me most deeply, and what has not left me since walking out of the theater, is how much Eddington reminded me of home.

I grew up in a small rural town not too different from this one. During the pandemic, I saw the same unraveling happen in real time. I watched neighbors, classmates, and even some people in my own family fall into the exact patterns this film portrays. The paranoia. The online misinformation. The complete breakdown of trust in institutions, in science, and sometimes even in each other. Watching it on screen was not just eerie. It was painful. Because it was not fictional. It was familiar.

And then there is Emma Stone. I have always loved her. I watch things just because she is in them. But what she does in Eddington is unlike anything I have seen from her before. Her performance as Louise, the emotionally unraveling partner of Joe, is absolutely devastating. She walks through the film in a kind of fog, clinging to doll therapy, spiraling into deeper mental illness while the world outside burns. What made it so hard to watch was how much her story echoed people I know. Women in my family. Women in my community. Vulnerable people around me, who have been hurt or abandoned or unseen, and then sold false hope by people who claimed to care.

There were moments in the film that felt like watching someone get sucked into a Mary Kay or Pampered Chef pitch, except instead of makeup or kitchenware, the product was ideology. It was belonging. It was answers. And it broke my heart. Because I have seen it happen. Louise was not just a character. She was a mirror. A reflection of all the hurt women who are manipulated into believing they are finally being seen, when really they are just being used.

Aster’s filmmaking here is relentless. The pace is chaotic in a way that feels intentional. The editing mimics the way we now consume life—in fragments, through screens, through headlines, through livestreams and comment sections. From the livestream monologues to the unsettling doll therapy to the underground data center bunker, it all builds into something that feels absurd and impossible—until you realize it is already happening.

The final act is almost too much to bear. It is fast. It is violent. It is disorienting. Everything spirals. Joe commits acts of unspeakable violence and somehow still wins. The narrative gets rewritten. The truth gets erased. The lies win. The town moves forward. The data center goes up. And the people just keep scrolling.

When the lights came up, I felt breathless. And then I felt grief.

Because this film, for as surreal and exaggerated as it is, feels painfully real. And that is the part that hurts the most. We are still living in this reality. The pandemic is still not over. People are still dying. Families are still being changed forever. The damage is still unfolding. It is not a past tense problem. And Eddington forces us to sit with that.

What also makes this film so bold—maybe even dangerous—is that it was released in 2025. Right now. In a country where Donald Trump is once again president. In a climate where truth is constantly under attack, and where art that challenges power feels increasingly fragile. This movie does not hold back. It calls things what they are. It names them. It mocks them. It grieves them. And that is something we do not see enough of anymore.

If this is what Ari Aster can do, I get it now. And I am both terrified and grateful.

Eddington is not for everyone. It is intense, uncomfortable, and unflinching. But for those of us who have lived through these years with our eyes open and our hearts still hurting, it is one of the most honest, brave, and deeply felt pieces of American art I have ever seen. It does not want to comfort you. It wants to confront you.

And it does. Powerfully. Viscerally. Without apology.

Until another film sparks me to write an essay,

Jared ❤