Film Review: Eden
Inspired By The Accounts Of Those Who Survived
INTRODUCTION
This is a quick review of the newly released film Eden. Please note that this is just one of the many movies I will have watched each year, and my initial grade for this film may change over time, for better or worse. To stay up to date on my thoughts about other movies and any potential changes in my opinion on this one, follow me on Letterboxd.
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PLOT
Via Letterboxd: A group of disillusioned outsiders abandon modern society in search of a new beginning. Settling on a remote, uninhabited island, their utopian dream quickly unravels as they discover that the greatest threat isn’t the brutal climate or deadly wildlife, but each other.
REVIEW
With the fall film festivals kicking off this week, I’ve been making it a point to catch up on the last couple weeks of new releases I’d missed. Incidentally, one of those films happens to be a title that played at the festivals last year, earned mixed reviews, and was eventually picked up by a small distributor. Normally, a movie like that wouldn’t warrant a full written review from me, but this one comes from an Academy Award winning director, and deals with a real-life mystery I’ve always found fascinating.
The film is Eden, directed by Ron Howard, which dramatizes the mystery of the Floreana Island in the Galápagos. In the thirties, two families attempted to escape modern living and carve out a life in nature, only for tensions to erupt after an eccentric, self-proclaimed duchess arrived with her two lovers and grand plans of building a luxury resort. Soon, mysterious disappearances and deaths followed, leaving behind conflicting accounts of what really happened. I first came across this story through the 2013 documentary The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came To Eden.
As intrigued as I was to see Howard tackle this, I also had a few trepidations. I worried it might veer into try-hard, pretentious territory in its depiction of paradise unraveling; complete with overwrought, hedonistic sequences. On top of that, when a film directed by Howard and starring names like Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Sydney Sweeney, Daniel Brühl, and Ana de Armas winds up quietly released by a small distributor, that usually puts up some red flags.
Still, in the spirit of catching up before Labor Day, I gave it a watch and I have to say, I think a bigger studio missed the boat on this one. With the right marketing, Eden could’ve found a niche audience and performed better at the box office.
The film is well shot and directed. Anyone expecting some cheap, scrappy indie will likely be surprised by its cinematic polish. The ensemble does what it can to elevate a fairly straightforward script. Not every accent is convincing (the German ones in particular), but never so distracting that I didn’t buy into these actors embodying the Wittmers, Dr. Ritter and his partner, or the baroness and her lovers.
The biggest standout is Ana de Armas as the baroness. Howard and the script clearly lean into portraying her as a ruthless, almost theatrical villain, but de Armas throws herself into the role with relish. She makes it work, injecting the film with energy and making it easy to empathize with the settlers she antagonizes. When the film finally presents its own theory about her mysterious disappearance, I found myself willing to accept it.
What also impressed me is that the film never fully tips into indulgent, shock-for-shock’s-sake debauchery. It flirts with it, sure, but reins itself in just enough. Even so, this still feels like Ron Howard’s darkest film to date, a striking contrast to his usual catalog of work.
That said, Eden isn’t without flaws. It has fat that should’ve been trimmed in the editing room, and by the third act I was ready for things to wrap up. A tighter runtime could’ve sharpened the impact and maybe improved both critical and audience reception.
On first watch, I’m giving Eden a B-. It doesn’t fully capitalize on the potential of the real-life mystery at its core, but the ensemble (especially de Armas) elevates the material into an engaging enough experience. It’s lower-tier Howard, but still a step above his last outing, which continues to age worse with each passing year.
GRADING
