POPCORN REVIEWSS

While the driving force of Joe remains insecurity, the writing in Eddington also caters to a broader perspective on helplessness. In the opening shot of the film, you are witness to a homeless man utterish words that are gibberish, but it is a subtle reference to the gibberish world that we live in, that at times makes no sense to us. But a step further to this argument is being helpless in every way, as felt by Joe who notices his power and resources diminishing. It is told to us that Ted is increasing the tax payers money to direct the resources to sustainable energy and a local data center, that has had a direct impact on Joe who is crippled for power. In an early scene when you see Joe confronting Ted, you witness the velocity of the wind threatening to blow off the hat of Joe, who tightly holds onto it. It is symbolic of the power tussle wherein Joe chooses to hold on tightly to it, by choosing to fight back.

One of the by-products of Joe’s personality remains his impulsive nature. You notice how he doesn’t bat an eyelid before plunging himself into the political setup of the town, perhaps fuelled further by his conspiracy-driven mother Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell). This same impulsive nature has an impact on his personal life too – his tacky political campaign sees him distance himself from his family including his emotionally unstable wife Louise (Emma Stone), while also further complicating his life at a later stage wherein he impulsively chooses to take law into his own hands.

The characters are essentially divided into three categories, with a common thread of a political satire connecting each of them explicitly. While both Joe and Ted are categorized under the hunger for power and control, you notice three youngsters namely Eric (Matt Gomez Hidaka) ;Ted’s son, Sarah (Amelie Hoeferle) and Brian (Cameron Mann) who are seeking their identities and voices in the political landscape of the nation. The recent incident of George Floyd that triggered the ‘Black Lives Matter’ campaign has spread into the lives of the youngsters too, and each of them are dealing with it individually. For Brian, it is more about activism on social media given his aspirations of a political influencer that drives his ambitions. For Eric, it is moderately closer to home given his Hispanic ethnic background, where both he and his father Ted may have been exposed to racism. 

Sarah remains the lone character confused about her identity – probably too young to understand the nuances of the politics, while still wanting to take a stand. In a scene, you notice her provoking Michael (Michael Ward), a local police and Joe’s empathizer to switch sides and join them in the protest, almost influencing his opinion of having a say in the matter, thereby further confusing his stance.

The third category belongs to trauma wherein you have characters like Louise fall into it. She is often dilusional with respect to her past trauma, that is suppressed within her. In fact her trauma is further fuelled by the constant bickering of her mother-in-law Dawn, that doesn’t offer her any respite. In fact, even her husband’s emotional distance with her during his political campaign, along with his decision to use her as a tool to exploit her past relationship with Ted, further triggers her trauma. And this attracts her to a radical cult leader Vernon (Austin Butler) while finding common ground as far as her trauma is concerned too. And because Vernon has been subjected to a past trauma too – he too falls in this category.

The consistent theme of social media coincides with the characterization of the characters too. Here, every character cares about the world that he lives in, but the difference remains on how every character views the world differently – a trait that circles back to my first point of this being a ‘divisive’ drama by design. Hence, everyone uses social media in a way to benefit himself – a direct commentary on trolls erupting out of a political controversy that further divides the world. Here you see the campaign of ‘Black Lives Matter’ erupting at a small level in the form of a small gathering, only to progressively spread into chaos, with a later plot-point including that of a white-supremist terror group entering the town, even as Joe the Sheriff is caught-unaware! And this is true because of the use of social media that literally spreads hatred like wildfire!

Another subplot involves the character arc of Joe too – from being the law-abider to a law-breaker, even while invariably transforming into a form of an individual supporting white supremism. Be it the impulsive murder of Ted and Eric (which he ironically names it as a movement of the Left Wing), or directly all the blame onto Michael – the signs of division in his personality are evident here. In a scene wherein you see him randomly firing bullets, it is symbolic of literally shooting in the dark to tackle a situation – one that is external involving the elimination White Supremists from his town, and second one being internal, of eliminating the same issue from his mind. As poetic as it may sound, both are managed even as all Supremists are eliminated while Joe is stabbed in his head, something that would damage his nerves and leave him like a vegetable. 

It is poetic how Joe has power but doesn’t have his body to support him – with the underlying messaging being of always appreciating the things we have in life. It doesn’t help his case that all the characters around him have either progressed in life away from him, or are in turn using him to convey their personal interests with respect to the power that they are experiencing. This, even as the cycle of hate is continued through the antics of a character who was wronged. And while it would be interesting to see how the drama unfolds in his sequel (probably), the screenplay here has deep political themes that are wrapped in a wild little satire that is reflective of the times that we live in today.