First Look Featurette for Ari Aster and Joaquin Phoenix's Pandemic Thriller EDDINGTON
A24 has released the a first look featurette for director Ari Aster’s new film Eddington, which offers a behind the scenes look at the film, which is set during the COVID pandemic. A moment in time that I’m in no rush to revisit.
The video features interviews with the cast and crew as they offer details on the story and explain what exactly this movie is going to give us.
The movie is set in May of 2020 and it’s described as a modern Western and the brief logline reads: “A standoff between a small-town sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor (Pedro Pascal) sparks a powder keg as neighbor is pitted against neighbor in Eddington, New Mexico.”
The new trailer pulls takes us back five years, when six-foot-enforced social distancing was a thing, and there were protests sparked by the death of George Floyd and there were tons of online conspiracy theorists.
The film seems to focus on how the Covid-19 pandemic broke the minds of all kinds of people in a small town community.
Phoenix and Pascal are joined by Austin Butler, Emma Stone, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Amélie Hoeferle, Clifton Collins Jr. and William Belleau.
This is Aster’s fourth feature film, following Hereditary, Midsommar and Beau Is Afraid, the last of which Phoenix also starred in. When talking about working with Phoenix, Aster said:
“Having now worked with him, I understand why he is so reluctant to jump onto anything — because he really puts all of himself into whatever he’s doing. The way that he challenges the material — not in a gratuitous way or in a way that’s a pain in the ass.
“The question usually amounts to ‘Is there anything we haven’t considered here?’ I realized that it’s something that I was really wanting from an actor, and now I can’t imagine making a film without him.”
Eddington is set to open in competition at Cannes. It will be released in the US on July 18.