Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal, America's two conflicting souls

Special Envoy to CannesOne of the major issues facing today's world is how the ideological polarization of politics is increasingly spilling over into everyday life and endangering coexistence, especially in a heavily armed society like the United States. Ari Aster points in this direction in Eddington, the debut in the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival of the director of Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019), who after being acclaimed as a master of modern horror in his first films seems determined to expand his scope. He already did so in the dislocated existential comedy Beau is scared (2023) and repeats the play in Eddington imprinting an overtly satirical and misanthropic tone on the story, which follows a rather bungling sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) with a dysfunctional marriage as he clashes with his town's mayor during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.

The film borders on comedy in its portrayal of Sheriff Joe Cross, an incompetent slacker who publicly renounces mask-wearing and reminiscent of the dumb cop he played Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Phoenix plays Cross with the tragicomic and desperate energy that he already displayed in Inherent vice or in the same Beau is scaredBut what pits him against the mayor (a somewhat wasted Pedro Pascal) is an old rumor about a 20-year-old affair between him and Cross's mentally fragile wife (Emma Stone). Distraught over the possibility of losing her, Cross runs for mayor and begins spreading increasingly thick lies about his rival.

Eddington, the fictional town where the film takes place, functions in some ways as a metaphor for a United States that has become a battleground for the hidden interests of two opposing sides, because Aster shoots in all directions and weaves a parallel plot that he portrays in the raw at the same time in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. This mocking equidistance is the most questionable decision in a film that, on the other hand, bears witness with sufficient eloquence to the neurosis of a fractured and dysfunctional American society, which does not know how to manage its collective traumas and, ultimately, ends up resorting.

It must be said that it is in the last section of the film, when it has just taken the form of a thriller brutal action, which Eddington finds itself as a wild and pitch-black comedy, revealing a jumble of influences ranging from the literature of Thomas Pynchon to war video games. And despite moving away from the horror genre, Aster continues to showcase his talent for choreographed violence and bursts of absurd horror, as well as for nihilistic endings with no room for redemption or hope. Just in case Eddington be a horror movie, at heart.

Police under scrutiny in Cannes

Police brutality is present in another title in the competition, Dossier 137 by Dominik Moll, which follows the investigative work of a French internal affairs officer investigating the serious injuries inflicted on a boy by riot police during the Yellow Vest protests. Based on real events, the film meticulously follows the investigation of the officer (an always convincing Léa Drucker), who tenaciously builds the case amidst an increasingly tense and anti-police social environment. Little by little, Moll carefully outlines the portrait of the fragility of the mechanisms that, in theory, should monitor the actions of law enforcement, despite a final scene that descends into pamphlet-like emotional blackmail inconsistent with the preceding sobriety. But what he wants Dossier 137 is, above all, to stir up a necessary social debate, and in this legitimate option lies its great virtue and its main weakness as a cinematographic work.

Also in competition, this Friday was screened The last little girl, a tender approach to the discovery of a teenager of Algerian origin's homosexual identity during her transition from high school to university. There's nothing extraordinary, nor anything to criticize, in this beautiful LGBTI drama directed by actress Hafsia Herzi—winner of the recent César Award for Best Actress and a rising name in French cinema—who brings the normality of seeing the lesbian experience portrayed through the eyes of women who are also affected by the fact that they wear glasses.