During the COVID-19 pandemic, a standoff between a small-town sheriff and mayor sparks a powder keg as neighbour is pitted against neighbour in Eddington, New Mexico.
Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), is the world-weary sheriff of the small town of Eddington, New Mexico, population 2,634. The year is 2020, lockdown begins but with no cases of Covid, Cross is adamantly anti mask-wearing, at loggerheads with Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) who takes an opposite view on the personal liberty issue. What’s more, the mayor has emotional history with Cross’s depressive wife Louise (Emma Stone) who now suffers from hysteria and whose mother is a querulous conspiracy theorist and social media addict. Add into this heady mix social polarisation, Black Lives Matter, liberal-white privilege and guns and the tension begins to rise. Austen Butler co stars as a charismatic cult leader in this genre-bending drama about law enforcement and division but it always returns to its roots as a contemporary Western.
USA/Finland Ari Aster 148m
