Joaquin Phoenix is superlative, never making a misstep, as a small-town sheriff in Ari Aster‘s Eddington (2025), set in Covid Year 2020. The themes include the adequacy and inadequacy of legal and personal reaction to epidemics, internet deceit and folly, political fury and violence, marital thoughtlessness. It’s a pretty sturdy, and weird, tragicomedy until the last third of it serves up an unsavory, nihilistic mess. Semi-good work, then, from Aster; very palatable work from actors Deirdre O’Connell, Emma Stone and Austin Butler.