It is inevitable that “Eddington” will be as polarizing as the year it takes place in: 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic, the death of George Floyd, calamitous economic disruption, mass civil rights protests and a tense presidential election all taking place within a 12-month period made it a fulcrum point for American culture. There are now two Americas with two dogmatically opposed perspectives on meteoric events. Everything feels tense.

Director Ari Aster, in his latest comedy western “Eddington,” seeks to tackle that time head-on. This is obviously not new ground, comedies have been made about political division in the years leading up to and following 2020, but Aster’s approach of throwing an anxiety-inducing barrage of misfortunes at his characters is unique.

Building off of the chaotic stylings he developed in 2023’s messy but entertaining “Beau Is Afraid,” “Eddington” believes that institutions that govern us nor your fellow man can be trusted. It is a misanthropic, Daniel Clowes-esque comedy which, for better or worse, makes a meal of tragedy to mine a few decent laughs; tact be damned.

The film is centered on Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), a bumbling sheriff who presides over the small town of Eddington, New Mexico, in May of 2020. His political opponent, the tech industry backed liberal mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), butts up with him frequently as Cross remains lax on enforcing a mask mandate or really any kind of order. Compounded by the stress of living with his disaffected wife Louise (Emma Stone) and doting mother-in-law Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), Cross decides to run for mayor, seeking to gain some control over his life.

The film is episodic in nature, the town slowly feeling the brunt of the country’s problems as the runtime speeds along. Obviously these can be touchy subjects, with many of the injustices seen in the film remain unsolved to this day.

In a Q&A following a screening of the film at the Music Box on July 12, Aster stated that his main goal with this film is to acknowledge the existential threat of division that increasingly seems unsolvable. By highlighting the abstract concept of division, Aster flattens most of the topics being discussed – racial injustice, pedophilia, masking during a pandemic – into menial objects that should be overlooked in favor of holding the country together.

This may be an implicit goal, most of these subjects are pushed by the characters in the film as a means of gaining individual power. A white high school boy co-opts the Black Lives Matter movement as a way to sleep with the leader of Eddington’s chapter, who is a white girl. Joe Cross uses a false rape accusation in order to disparage his political opponent and further his mayoral campaign.

While an outlook like this is good for establishing a frantic mood, which in turn leads to funny bits like a pissing contest between two teenage boys about who understands Angela Davis better, it does minimize the actual subjects being discussed. As Cross frequently states to his fellow (underwritten) black police officer, the death of George Floyd was a tragedy.

Aster is obviously critical of Cross as he continues to commit more and more heinous acts throughout the film. We are meant to laugh at him as much as we hate him. But as a piece of political satire, this doesn’t have much to say other than that politics are stupid and lead to tragedy.

Ideas of tech conglomerates farming data, white people utilizing racist systems of power while maintaining the benefit of the doubt, and cabals of child sexual abusers are brought up, but left dangling in the wind as Aster indulges in the genre stylings of the western or Phoenix’s physical comedy.

It’s a feature length “South Park” episode. I like “South Park,” but if Aster was trying to say something substantive about division in America, it would behoove him to not shy away from speaking earnestly about it.

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