Since the premiere of Ari Aster’s Eddington at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, the word I’ve constantly heard/seen to describe it is “divisive.” It’s a dark comedy set during the summer of 2020 – a time period that has a lot of baggage for all of us – and it examines the moment in our recent history via the lens of a small town in New Mexico. It’s conflict-filled subject matter that has inflamed strong opinions… and that means that it is doing what its writer/director intended it to do.<br /><br />When I sat down with Aster and actors Luke Grimes and Micheal Ward for an interview during the Los Angeles press day for the feature, I made note of the “divisive” response, and I asked the filmmaker about how he factors audience reaction into his work and how he expects his movies to play with movie-goers. He explained that there are certain stages involved when he is constructing a screenplay – but the first time he digs into a story, he is writing purely what he wants to write.
