Eddington
Eddington
July 21, 2025 | 796 words | Movies
Wow, what a surprise this movie turned out to be. The promotional blurb offers only the following: “During the COVID-19 pandemic, a stand-off between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.”
While the phrase “powder keg” turns out to be accurate in a very literal sense once we get to the third act, I was not prepared for the layered by-play that leads up to the fireworks.
What starts out as a quiet little film set in a remote section of New Mexico slowly reveals itself to be a colorful tableau of just about every hot-button social issue you can think of.
The low-key setting somehow makes every encounter over these social issues feel more immediate. The audience can’t help but recognize each exchange as something we ourselves have experienced first-hand, in our own lives.
It begins with the sheriff, a stoic hero of western lore, who is not convinced COVID-19 is a real concern in his isolated part of the country, and anyway is not comfortable wearing a mask due to his mild asthma. In the local grocery store he comes to the defense of an elderly gent who is turned away for failure to mask up. He chides the mom-and-pop store owners, along with the mayor who also happens to be in attendance, with “you can’t treat people that way.”
And then the sheriff begins reacting to other things, such as the smooth-operator mayor who is trying to bring some big-time development to this down-at-the-heels community. Not everyone is convinced their personable, photogenic mayor has got their best interests at heart. Starting with you-know-who.
The other characters employ broad strokes to portray different pathologies, and in this movie that has the effect of prompting an examination of our own behavior. Either in the way we champion what we think is a worthy cause, or in our response to someone else’s well-intentioned advocacy, when that advocacy strikes us as off-kilter.
The script also does an effective job dramatizing the negative potential of social media, capable of warping individual emotions and manipulating public perceptions.
Like when the sheriff decides on a whim that he, too, will enter the upcoming race for mayor. He shoots a video in his police cruiser, pitching himself as the better candidate, and has his deputy post it as soon as he arrives at work. When the deputy asks if he is sure about this, the sheriff responds with “I don’t want to overthink this – just post it.” He has taken this bold step without bothering to consult his wife, who we learn is aghast at the idea for reasons of her own.
Through many an unexpected plot twist and turn the screenplay never really takes sides. The sheriff’s character functions as our through-line, as he gradually morphs from a grouchy, good guy everyman into someone who begins to exhibit poor judgement and take short cuts. He deteriorates further into becoming an unpredictable loose cannon and then, finally, a raving lunatic.
The obvious take-away here is the sheriff as a metaphor for how we as a nation have taken the whole grassroots, conspiracy theory, rage-against-the-government thing – the one that Donald Trump triumphantly rode into power – a little too far.
But wait, is that all the writer-director wants to say? Perhaps not.
In the film’s early sequences, we watch in amusement as several examples of wild-eyed conspiracy theories are trotted out. Then at the end of the movie there is a surprising about-face, as loose ends are neatly tied up and we get a peek at unidentified forces operating largely in the background that have indeed manipulated – or at the very least taken advantage of – events as they have unfolded. All for the financial benefit of a very few, and all while finding spokesmen and spokeswomen to ‘manage the message’ and make the inevitable outcomes easier for the rest of this small community to swallow.
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The are a few incongruities along the way, and a few violent scenes I wish were implied rather than depicted in excruciating detail. But I was able to chalk those up as being in the service of the larger fable being presented for our consideration. As I say, Eddington somehow manages to explore our national consciousness on just about every hot-button social issue out there.
This little movie is packed with meaning, and I plan on savoring it all again with a second viewing on the big screen.
Oh, and Joaquin Phoenix does a remarkable job in the role of sheriff, going from a quirky non-conformist we can all recognize and root for most of the time, into someone a lot less agreeable but who is still, unfortunately, very familiar.
Robert J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
bobcavjr@gmail.com