Eden review Ron Howard and his all-star cast mount
a Darkly funny adult spin on Lord of the FL Dr friederick Ritter Jude Law is loathed to repeat
anyone else so when his writer block finds him spitting out quotes from bigger better far more
well-known philosophers he knows things are going badly things have in fact been going badly for a
very long time as is prone to happen when someone moves to an uninhabited Island and attempts to
carve out a new world order still had Friedrich a very real person been a bit more comfortable
with the idea of repeating someone else he likely would have found plenty of comfort in Jean Paul
sra's perpetually precient observation that hell is other people such as the thrust of Ron Howard's
Darkly funny Eden a fact-based story that follows what happened after freed and his partner dor stch
Vanessa Kirby moved to a galpagos island floriana to be precise after the end of World War I and
the start of all the stuff that would lead to World War II in search of a very different way
of living only to find that they simply can't shake the stuff that tends to make Society so
unbearable read other people Frederick likes to act as if he's above it all but at a certain point
he started sending out missives to the the outside world touting the paradise he and Dora have
created so they shouldn't be so surprised when people start showing up seeking a similar life oh
but are they ever Frederick's dream is to by his own admission save Humanity but the furthest
he got in that process was to move away from the entire world to bang away at his typewriter
dreaming up nonsense philosophy he's completely and hilariously unable to live out himself while
he Dora who has Ms which they try to clear with meditation sex and hard living have carved out
a bit of a living on floriana it's precarious by every measure everything on this island can
kill you Dora tells their newest visitors and it's perhaps the most true thing anyone says
throughout Noah Pink's clever screenplay those new visitors the Whitmer family father hin
Daniel BR second wife Margaret Sydney Sweeney who gets one hell of a go For Broke sequence in
this film and Ill son Harry Jonathan tidle the family has been enthralled by what they've read
in the German papers of friederick and Dora's adventures and they want in they show up in kicky
little Camp clothes toing butterfly Nets storyy at the whole Affair friederick and Dora promptly
send them up the hill to a notoriously infertile slice of the island Dora's beloved burrow helps
and that will be the last time that happens and and expect they'll abandon the whole Affair
in weeks they don't things are already feeling Lord of the Flies why enough already but with a
distinctly adult bent and plenty of unexpected humor and that's before baroness aloise boset
the Wagner warhorn anid armos a scream in a cast filled with standout performances shows
up all delusional big talk about building the world's most luxurious hotel for millionaires
only most of it helped along mightily be her dedic ated Cotter of manservants and lovers
including Felix camerer and Toby Wallace on an island filled with blinkered people and that's
being generous aloise is Queen well that's the plan as she starts pulling strings between her
friends and neighbors all of it both obvious and understandable and truly entertaining enough
that you'll laugh out loud when La proclaims Deus X makina at a plot twist that is precisely
that Eden collapses Eden does not Howard and his stacked cast keep the entire thing chugging right
along toward the inevitable and even that doesn't feel so expected if only because of how damn
funny this trip Straight to Hell feels a certain amount of creative license helps goodness knows
no one on floriana looked quite as good as they were coming undone in increasingly dark manners
even as occasionally bloodless drama feels like a whiff listen for a film in which Sydney Sweeney
fights off a pack of fural dogs while giving birth by herself things could and maybe even should feel
a lot more [ __ ] up than what we get in Eden but what we do get from Howard's latest is a strong
reminder of his handle on not just craft and casting but also story and tone no film about the
utter demise of a supposed Utopia a real one to boot and the utter infallibility of human beings
should be this fun but we're lucky this one is it helps the hard truths go down easier especially
about who we all are as people you know hellish