Movie Review: ‘Eden’

Related Article: Director Ron Howard Talks ‘Eden’ and Working with his All-Star Cast

Initial Thoughts

(L to R) Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby on the set of ‘Eden’. Photo: Jasin Boland.

We can’t say that ‘Eden’ is a very good movie, but we will say it’s a pretty entertaining one. Based on a true story, the latest from veteran director Ron Howard (‘Thirteen Lives’) is perhaps the most un-Ron Howard-like film of his career – a dark, sometimes brooding, sometimes over-the-top exploration of human beings giving into their worst impulses instead of coming together to help each other.

Noah Pink’s screenplay offers a cynical view of what happens when people try to disconnect from the rest of the world, and the movie’s ultimate insights are not exactly news. It also suffers from uneven pacing and tonal issues. But its intermittently gripping story and solid performances from its topline cast – especially Sydney Sweeney and Ana de Armas – make it fascinating to watch.

Story and Direction

Ron Howard on the set of ‘Eden’. Photo: Jasin Boland.

In 1929, German doctor Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and his partner Dore Strauch (Vanessa Kirby) settle on a remote atoll in the Galapagos Islands called Floreana, where Ritter aims to create a simpler life away from the brutal post-World War I environment that is fostering fascism around the world. Three years later, having read about Ritter’s exploits – which have made him famous back home – Heinz Wittmer (Daniel Brühl) and his pregnant new wife Margret (Sydney Sweeney), along with Heinz’s son Harry (Jonathan Tittel), arrive on Floreana to follow in Ritter’s footsteps and create their own homestead.

But Ritter and Dore, who are nothing if not world-class misanthropes, are not pleased at the intrusion. “Nothing about our life here is magic,” Ritter warns the idealistic Heinz, adding that “failure is inevitable” for the couple, who make a fairly successful go at it despite Ritter’s admonishments. Yet Ritter, Dore, and the Wittmers are all unhappy at the arrival of the Baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas), a debauched denizen of European high society who shows up with her two male lovers and the intent of building an exclusive resort on Floreana.

While the Wittmers, Ritter, and Strauch are all accustomed to the rigors of life on the island, the Baroness is not, and she soon sets a chain of events in motion that find all three groups – Ritter and Strauch, the Wittmers, and the Baroness and her entourage – constantly shifting allegiances and ultimately turning on each other. It’s a scenario that’s not unexpected, and Pink’s screenplay often forces the characters into situations and decisions to drive the intended narrative, rather than let it flow out of the characters organically. The result is a story that moves in fits and starts and often has the characters acting mainly get the story from one pre-determined point to the next.

(L to R) Felix Kammerer, Ana de Armas and Toby Wallace in ‘Eden’. Photo: Vertical.

This leads to a lack of urgency in the proceedings, with only a wild scene in which Margret gives birth by herself – as she is attacked by wild dogs all while the Baroness’ lovers raid the Wittmers’ food supplies – approaching levels of tension and outright horror that suggests the ghastliness of the overall situation. Other events play out largely as one might expect, and the tone veers from one of grim reality to outright camp (as in a late dinner party scene that made us think of a similar sequence in ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ – albeit without the latter’s shocking reveal of what was on the menu).

Howard is more than confident on a technical and visual level (the Australian location shoot makes the isolation of Floreana feel real), but doesn’t seem as sure-footed in handling the tonal shifts or the overall darker nature of the material. The result is a movie in which you know what’s going to happen in the end – but you still want to keep looking to see if the film completely collapses or not (which it almost does in the third act).

Cast and Performances

(L to R) Felix Kammerer, Ana de Armas and Toby Wallace in ‘Eden’. Photo: Jasin Boland.

Everyone’s German accents waver throughout the film (except for Daniel Brühl’s, of course), but the performances are on solid footing for the most part. Sydney Sweeney does the best work overall, downplaying her physical attributes while effectively and subtly charting Margret’s journey from innocence and fear to strength and even a kind of ruthlessness. At the other end of the scale, de Armas is wildly flamboyant and outlandish but far more entertaining than her bland turn in ‘Ballerina’ earlier this year.

Law also gives quite a complicated and over-the-top performance, with his steel chompers (Ritter has his originals removed to prevent infection) and un-self-conscious full frontal nudity, and while Kirby is quite good at portraying Dore’s smirking distaste for others (“They’re clearly suffering…shall we f**k?” she inquires to Ritter at one point, evidently turned on by others’ misery), she doesn’t get nearly enough to do as she should, and is mostly left standing around reacting to the others.

Final Thoughts

(L to R) Daniel Brühl and Jude Law star in ‘Eden’. Photo: Vertical.

A film about people separating into their own camps and battling each other while the rest of civilization burns certainly has its relevance in our current situation, although it’s rich coming from the director who introduced the world by and large to JD Vance. And as with that woeful film, there’s a kind of lack of substance underneath the hood of ‘Eden’ that makes it ultimately a shallow exercise.

But nevertheless, it’s neither the complete disaster some folks have made it out to be, nor is it anywhere near a high point on Howard’s filmography. It works as misery porn about good-looking actors getting nasty, deceitful and violent with each other, although that may not be the result its director intended.

‘Eden’ receives a score of 55 out of 100.

Vanessa Kirby stars in ‘Eden’. Photo: Vertical.

What is the plot of ‘Eden’?

A group of disillusioned outsiders abandon modern society in search of a new beginning, settling on a remote, uninhabited island. But their utopian dream quickly unravels as tensions spiral, desperation takes hold, and a twisted power struggle leads to betrayal, violence, and death.

Who is in the cast of ‘Eden’?

• Jude Law as Dr. Friedrich Ritter
• Vanessa Kirby as Dora Strauch
• Daniel Brühl as Heinz Wittmer
• Sydney Sweeney as Margret Wittmer
• Ana de Armas as Baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn
• Jonathan Tittel as Harry Wittmer
• Richard Roxburgh as Allan Hancock
• Toby Wallace as Robert Phillipson
• Felix Kammerer as Rudolph Lorenz

‘Eden’ opens in theaters on August 22nd. Photo: Vertical.

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