Admittedly, this was my first Ari Aster film. I have heard good things about his other ones. I did quite enjoy the novelesque, slow-burn that was Eddington. This reviewer of New Yorker, did not as much.

No longer a horror wunderkind, Aster, at thirty-nine, yearns to be an impish anatomist of the body politic. The times grow worse and worse; must his movies follow suit?

I had high hopes for this review. Really. But the reviewer pulls on this threat, only to abandon it too soon. I also felt that this was a film opining over the decline of an empire, but apparently this reviewer and I might disagree on what might be causing it.

The film has the dust of a Western, the snark of a satire, the violence of a thriller, the nihilism of a noir, and the bloat of an epic.

Does everything need to fit in a damn box? I might have chalked this up as a point of strength in the film, its tendency to resist clean categorization.

The film’s cinematographer, Darius Khondji, frames the construction site as if it were the monolith in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” looming over Eddington like an omen. What it portends, though, is the opposite of a cosmic leap forward. The rise of artificial intelligence will only hasten humanity’s inexorable decline.

Here, again, our reviewer titillates on one of the film's central themes only to leave us feeling used, desperately wanting more. What is this film talking about? The tension between localism vs. globalism, the rule of law vs. crony corporatism, love vs. hatred, community and familial ties vs. the cold hand of the state, blind obedience? No -- it must be about the George Floyd Riots, race, political correctness etc. etc. etc.

Anthony Fauci, Hillary Clinton, George Floyd, George Soros, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kyle Rittenhouse, hydroxychloroquine, Bitcoin, Antifa—“Eddington” references all these and more, as if to position Aster as a nonpartisan provocateur. Why, then, given such a range of targets, is it the conviction of the young and woke that stings him into comic rebuke?

I guess the author here cannot begin to fathom the use of depicting the symbols of the times in a non-partisan manner. In fact, I'd even argue that the charge of 'provocateur' is even a little harsh, as there wasn't much that I saw in Eddington that wasn't eerily accurate. It seems the author here is seething to apply political commentary, which, I think, misses the point of the film.

Really, the problem with “Eddington” is not that Aster judges his characters. It’s that he barely finds them interesting enough to judge, and his boredom proves infectious. What purpose is served by the figure of Joe’s deputy Michael (Micheal Ward), seemingly Eddington’s sole Black resident of note? He exists only to stoically absorb punishment from white townsfolk, whether it’s Sarah, who criticizes him for not joining a B.L.M. protest, or Guy (Luke Grimes), a fellow-deputy who turns against him overnight

I don't know about this last point. Rhetorically, they are not being coherent -- the reviewer starts by saying that the characters are boring, and then to illustrate their point, says that the black police officer use used as the film's battering ram. Bad writing.

Also this and other Bitcoin easter eggs were scattered throughout: