Special Preview: Eddington (Comedy)

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Director: Ari Aster
Producer: Ann Ruark,Lars Knudsen,Ari Aster
Screenwriter: Ari Aster
Cinematographer: Darius Khondji
Composer: The Haxan Cloak,Daniel Pemberton
Production Designer: Elliot Hostetter
Costume Designer: Stacy Caballero,Anna Terrazas
Key Cast: Pedro Pascal,Joaquin Phoenix,Emma Stone,Austin Butler

Enter the epicentre of COVID-era chaos in the latest star-studded black comedy from horror maestro Ari Aster.

Trigger warning: it’s May 2020, and the world’s about to lose its mind while staring down COVID-19. In the fictional New Mexico town of Eddington, that sets mask mandate–avoiding sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) against mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), who’s all for inviting an energy- and job-draining AI hub into the community. Throw in Joe’s troubled wife (Emma Stone), who’s navigating a traumatic past; her conspiracy theory–spouting mum (Deirdre O’Connell); a slippery snake-oil guru covered in tattoos (Austin Butler); and a white woman (Amélie Hoeferle) who’s so oblivious to her own privilege that she commandeers the local Black Lives Matter movement and hectors her African-American ex, deputy sheriff Michael (Micheal Ward), for not joining in, and the scene is set for a wild western that’s destined to spiral out of control into brutal violence.

Screening in Competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, the latest absurdist nightmare vision from Midsommar director Ari Aster is a comedy so dark that you may feel bad for laughing. Cutting a slice of rotten Americana straight from the headlines, Eddington asks if it’s even possible to sew up the gaping fissures of a society that, five years on from the start of the pandemic, only appears to be getting worse.

“Ari Aster transforms everyday American insanity into one of the most artistically complete and compulsively watchable doom-scrolls of the year. It’s insightful, gloriously bonkers, and often very funny.” – Elle