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In Ari Aster’s dark comedy, Joaquin Phoenix plays the sheriff of a New Mexico town riven by political clashes and pandemic anxieties.

Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal face off in "Eddington." Credit: A24 Comedy is tragedy plus time. There may be a day when critics look back on Ari Aster's COVID-19 comedy Eddington with kinder eyes.

Imperfect and overlong, Ari Aster's fourth feature ends up as a neat snapshot of the COVID years, as well as a sly missile aimed at a lie we’ve all been sold...View on euronews

Writer and director Ari Aster joins Morning Joe to discuss the new film 'Eddington' which examines the mood in America during the Covid lockdowns.

Travis Hopsin of Punch Drunk Critics says the fear surrounding the pandemic, Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd protests that’s depicted in Eddington is “designed to enrage us,” but the most terrifying part of Ari Aster’s film is how accurate it is. The critic says:

Located in a fictional small town in New Mexico, the film centers around the lives of the townspeople during the thick of the pandemic. At the epicenter of it all is the budding rivalry between two of the town’s most prominent leaders: Sheriff Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix) and Mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal),

The first and maybe only true jump scare in Ari Aster’s “Eddington” comes right at the start. A barefoot old man trudges down the center of a road running through an empty Western town. He’s ranting and incoherently raving as he climbs a craggy hill silhouetted against a twilight sky. He gazes, or maybe glares, out at the town below.

A24 is known for its prestige arthouse films, but in its early days as a distributor, it made most of its money from elevated horror films like Ari Aster’s Hereditary and Midsommar. Over a decade in, the ambitions of A24 and Aster have expanded beyond genre film. But for both, the more recent results have been mixed.

As Eddington makes its theatrical debut this Friday, fans are already eager to know when the movie will get its digital and streaming release dates. This black-comedy movie is the latest offering from Ari Aster,