Welcome to Eddington, New Mexico, summer of 2020. Ari Aster’s new film invites us to revisit a time few are eager to return to—masks or no masks.

Equal parts satire and serious drama—and at times a western and political thriller—Eddington is Aster’s first film that doesn’t rely on supernatural elements (Hereditary) or plunge into surreal detours (Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid), though it’s still driven by chosen paranoias and dangerous self-delusions. The story immerses us immediately in the final year of Trump’s first term, when Covid mask mandates and safety protocols were in place, and just before the killing of George Floyd and the ensuing Black Lives Matter protests—widely represented here. If it takes a full paragraph of context before we even talk about the film directly, it’s because Aster’s intent is to give us enough rope—almost Pavlovian in its stimulus—to implicate us in his game: as subjects facing a mirror of our own manias and ideological anxieties.

In this fictional town, two authority figures clash over diverging political visions (and personal agendas): longtime sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) and mayor Ted García (Pedro Pascal), who’s running for re-election. Joe has a complicated home life: his wife, Louise (Emma Stone), traumatized by childhood abuse, is increasingly distant, and his mother-in-law, Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), is deep down the conspiracy rabbit hole. Neither woman pays him much attention, but out on the streets, and in his tiny police department, he still commands some respect. He’s still the one called when a homeless man tries, again, to break into the town’s closed-down bar. His local clout also allows him to walk into the grocery store without a mask (citing asthma), despite the disapproving stares.

Ted, in nearly every respect, is Joe’s opposite. He exudes confidence and always has a politically correct answer for every situation. Naturally, he wears a mask, keeps six feet of distance, and displays his pronouns on Zoom. If we ultimately question Ted’s sincerity, it’s because of his ties to a shady corporation planning to turn Eddington into a major data center hub. He’s also a single father to a teenage son, Eric (Matt Gómez Hidaka), though even that is weaponized by his campaign, which spins his wife’s abandonment into a story of how he grew closer to the community.

After a public showdown over indoor mask mandates, Joe announces he’s running for mayor. The news doesn’t sit well with his wife, who shares a past with Ted— which partly explains why Joe’s contempt for Joe is deeply personal. This premise alone could sustain a film, but Aster treats it as just one of many threads used to explore American contradictions. Consider the subplot in which two teens—one of them the mayor’s son—compete for a girl’s affection by mimicking the woke activism she embraces. Or the mesmerizing Vernon (Austin Butler), a conspiracy influencer preaching about “deprogramming consciousness” and dismantling child abuse networks.

It should also be said how the film is frequently, and unexpectedly, hilarious. One standout scene builds tension between Joe and Ted at a fundraiser when the sheriff crashes the event to turn down the blaring music after a noise complaint. The song? Katy Perry’s Firework. What follows is a standoff—volume up, volume down. Who needs gun duels when pop songs can be just as threatening? It’s easy to take Phoenix’s talent for granted, but under Aster’s direction (here and in Beau Is Afraid), he draws from both his intensity and his comic timing in equal measure.

Aster doubles down on unpredictability with a third act that explodes moral certainty. Characters reveal their worst selves as Eddington transforms into either a ghost town or full-blown pandemonium. One of the film’s pleasures is watching it evolve into a western—complete with a climactic shootout—playing like a hyperbolic nightmare of machine guns and mayhem. Frustrating and fascinating in equal measure, Aster has crafted a cultural mosaic. Robert Altman’s Nashville, which managed to capture the turmoil of late-20^th-century America, feels like an unavoidable comparison. Time will tell if Eddington comes close.

Calling the film “bothsidesism” is a misread. Released at a fitting moment, it reminds us that the illusion of returning to normalcy has long vanished. In that sense, Eddington might be the most appropriate—and most deserved—cinematic portrait of our times. That doesn’t settle the debate over whether it’s a smug, tongue-out gesture at sensitive topics or a sharp-eyed tapestry of American dysfunction from a filmmaker who’s been paying attention. Aster isn’t offering a definitive diagnosis. Instead, he dares to trace a path back into the labyrinth we still haven’t escaped—and invites us to ask why we entered it in the first place… assuming anyone still reasonable wants to find a way out.