Producers: Lars Knudsen, Ari Aster and Ann Ruark   Director: Ari Aster   Screenplay: Ari Aster   Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, Luke Grimes, Deirdre O’Connell, Micheal Ward, Clifton Collins Jr., William Belleau, Amélie Hoeferle, Cameron Mann, Matt Gomez Hidaka, Landall Goolsby and Elise Falanga   Distributor: A24

Grade: C-

Overnight success is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it can open doors and encourage risk-taking.  On the other, it can lead to overreach and destructive self-indulgence.  A prime example of the danger is Michael Cimono; the encomia the director received for “The Deer Hunter” led to the notorious debacle of “Heaven’s Gate.”

The trajectory of Ari Aster’s career is less precipitous, but the comparison holds.  His debut, the cerebral horror movie “Hereditary” (2018), was a surprise success with both critics and audiences.  It led A24 to give him carte blanche for “Midsommar” (2019), a disappointing follow-up but one that retained a tenacious hold on viewers.  Then came “Beau is Afraid” (2023), a lugubrious, self-important flop.  Still A24 continued its support of a man who’s come to be revered by some as a singular auteur of the anxiety that marks modernity, and the result is “Eddington.”

This is the rare film that can be described as fascinatingly awful—a big swing by a talented director that proves a monumental strike-out.  To be sure, it holds your attention even as your mouth droops in astonishment and you’re forced to suppress a giggle or a groan, and it succeeds as a provocation likely to elicit a lot of acrimonious argument.  But one suspects that few will admit to enjoying it; it’s the sort of massive misfire one might be pleased to have seen while never wanting to see it again.

To define what “Eddington” is about in the broadest terms, its theme is the socio-political polarization of America.  The darkly satirical modern anti-Western offers a microcosm of the destructive impact of the phenomenon through events in the titular New Mexico town, a tiny burg—population around 2,500—roiled by drought and a move to build a huge data center nearby that will worsen the water problem.  The already-existing divisions, which also include the presence of a sovereign tribal nation next door, are exacerbated when the pandemic hits in 2019 and state and national lockdowns, mask mandates and social distancing lead to people becoming increasingly isolated and, often, being drawn to conspiracy theories.  (Trump’s election 2016 and the emergence of QAnon the following year are reminders that the pandemic merely accelerated ongoing fissures.)

The divisions in Eddington by May of 2020, when the plot begins, are crystalized in its two most powerful citizens, Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), a soft-spoken but ambitious progressive who’s in favor of the pandemic restrictions as well as the data center, which he portrays in his schmaltzy re-election material as a potential economic boon, and Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), the county sheriff, a gruff, old-style lawman who’s resistant to enforcing the new restrictions (an asthmatic, he says that masks interfere with breathing and anyway are socially disruptive limitations on personal freedom) and suspicious of the changes the data center will bring.

And there are personal issues.  Cross believes that Garcia once got Joe’s wife Louise (Emma Stone) pregnant and forced her to have an abortion, and that the trauma has left Louise emotionally fragile: she spends most of her time sewing little fabric dolls with oddball faces.  Joe’s hostility is encouraged by his mother-in-law Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), a conspiracy theorist who’s moved in with the Crosses for the duration and shares what she finds on the internet, including the rants of smooth-talking Vernon Jefferson Peak (Austin Butler), whose theories focus on bands of pedophiles who kidnap and abuse children.

Riled by what’s happening, Joe, who sees himself standing up for traditional values, impulsively throws his Stetson into the mayoral race, festooning his car with right-wing slogans like “Your (sic) being manipulated.” His dim-bulb deputy Guy (Luke Grimes) is all in, but his trainee Michael (Micheal Ward) is less enthusiastic, especially after the George Floyd incident brings the Black Lives Matter movement to town.  It’s led by firebrand Sarah (Amélie Hoeferle), his ex-girlfriend, who berates him as a black man for choosing to join Joe in trying to squelch her street protests.  Drawn into the fray are Garcia’s rebellious son Eric (Matt Gomez Hidaka), who’s sweet on Sarah, and another local boy, Brian (Cameron Mann), whose interest in her leads to regurgitating her rhetoric so enthusiastically that when he spouts his newfound beliefs at the family dinner table his astonished father (Dan Davidson) blurts out, “Are you retarded?  You’re white!”  (Apologies: that’s the script, not the reviewer.)

Up to this point “Eddington” has been relatively even-handed in skewering both sides of the communal rift:  Garcia seems reasonable, but has his own axes to grind, and Cross has a bit of the old-style Western hero about him despite his obvious flaws.  Now, however, the sheriff makes bad choices, and the film becomes essentially a portrait of his deterioration, in effect entering Jim Thompson territory—the Thompson of “The Killer Inside Me” and “Pop. 1280.” Cross launches a personal attack on Garcia that backfires and destroys both his marriage and his political aspirations; a humiliating confrontation with his now-gloating opponent pushes him over the edge.  In a mix of desperation and cunning, he engages in an escalating series of horrific acts that affect Garcia, Michael, and Lodge (Clifton Collins Jr.), a homeless man whose incoherent rants have infused the film from the first scene.  The fact that Cross is aware that tribal policeman Jimenez (William Belleau) is watching his every step only further enrages him.

As he explodes, so does the town, literally—as a result, it appears, of “outside agitators.”  Just who they represent is unclear.  Perhaps they’re the violent left-wing radicals so many fear; perhaps they’re agents of solidgoldmagikarp, the corporation behind the proposed data center, using the disorder for its own purposes.  (If the latter, it would increase the bleak irony of the film’s coda.)

But it doesn’t really matter, because what Aster wants to convey isn’t such plot details but the overwhelming fear of a national paroxysm that permeated the population in 2020, and anxiety about the prospect of apocalyptic violence many still see on the horizon—portrayed here in miniature as a spray of automatic weapon fire that goes on for so long in would make Tarantino blanch.  The film is ultimately a warning, or perhaps a premonition, about where the country’s polarization can lead, though in the process of making that point it takes aim at more targets than one might care to count.

And while the advertising suggests that the film is an ensemble piece, it’s really a showcase for Phoenix, following the sheriff’s dramatic arc, which the actor fills with his now familiar moody, mumbling routine in a performance that, like the film itself, is lumbering, showy and rather obvious.  Everyone else in the cast is relegated to relative cameos—some are longer than others, but all revolve around Cross, and few of the supporting players make much of an impression save perhaps Butler, who conveys a smoothly sinister vibe in just a few scenes, and Collins, who jabbers up a storm. But all do what Aster asks of them.

So do the technical crew.  The production design by Elliott Hostetter and costumes by Anna Terrazas capture the feel of this depressed little town, while Darius Khondji’s lustrous cinematography conveys the bleak, dusty reality of the New Mexico locations.  Lucian Johnston’s editing, languid in even the final gun battle, is perfectly in synch with the director’s ponderous pacing, and the score by Bobby Krlic and Daniel Pemberton catches the sense of creeping dread Aster is after as well.

But while one can admire the ambition of “Eddington,” it’s the very definition of a film that’s overstuffed and undercooked—filled with big ideas but too unwieldy to do any of them justice.