Eddington

Directed by Ari Aster, Eddington details the battle of wills that ensues between the sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix’s Joe Cross) and mayor (Pedro Pascal’s Ted Garcia) of a small New Mexico town. Filmmaker Aster, armed with his own screenplay, delivers a sluggish and often shockingly uninvolving endeavor that fares especially poorly within its momentum-free opening stretch, and there’s little doubt, certainly, that the grating bent of many of the picture’s early sequences, most of which involve tiresome confrontations, slowly-but-surely drains the viewer’s interest and attention – which is undoubtedly a shame given Aster’s strong visual sensibilities and Phoenix and Pascal’s compelling, committed efforts. (Emma Stone, cast as Joe’s emotionally-unstable wife, offers up a disappointingly one-note turn that adds little to the narrative.) And while the picture admittedly does take some unexpected twists and turns in its second half, particularly in terms of a third act that boasts a lot more action than one might’ve anticipated, Eddington has long since confirmed its place as a frustrating misfire that might’ve worked at 90 minutes but feels just about endless at two-and-a-half hours.

* out of ****