Eden (2025) Vertical/Drama RT: 129 minutes Rated R (some strong violence, sexual content, graphic nudity, language) Director: Ron Howard Screenplay: Noah Pink Music: Hans Zimmer Cinematographer: Mathias Herndl Release date: August 22, 2025 (US) Cast: Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Sydney Sweeney, Daniel Bruhl, Jonathan Tittel, Felix Kammerer, Toby Wallace, Richard Roxburgh.
Rating: ***
There was a time (late 80s/early 90s) when three of the top directors were Meathead (Rob Reiner), Laverne (Penny Marshall) and Richie Cunningham (Ron Howard). That’s no longer true. Marshall (Big, A League of Their Own) passed way in 2018 after a long illness. Reiner’s (Stand by Me, Misery) career never fully recovered from the cinematic abomination that was North (1994).
Howard has done mostly solid work (Night Shift, Parenthood, A Beautiful Mind) with only a few missteps (EDtv, The Dilemma, In the Heart of the Sea). He hasn’t made a major studio film since 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, the lowest-grossing entry in the series. His latest effort, the dark Utopia-gone-wrong drama Eden, isn’t likely to put him back on top. It’s good, but way too dark to please audiences the same way many of his previous movies did. I’m a little surprised Vertical didn’t wait until fall to release it, but I have a feeling they weren’t quite sure what to do with it.
Based on a true story, the action takes place on Florencia, one of the Galapagos Islands in the Eastern Pacific. Set in 1929, it centers on a group of settlers who come there to escape the noise and hassle of the so-called civilized world. The first to set up residence is Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Law, Fantastic Beasts 2 & 3) and his wife Dora (Kirby, The Fantastic Four: First Steps). All he wants is to concentrate on his work. He’s writing a manifesto he’s convinced will change the world for the better. She’s there to cure her MS through meditation.
Their peace and solitude is disrupted by the arrival of traumatized WWI vet Heinz Wittmer (Bruhl, Inglorious Basterds) and his family, much younger wife Margret (Sweeney, Americana) and son Harry (Tittel, Crooks). They read about Friedrich in the newspaper. They’re hoping this new environment will cure the boy’s tuberculosis. The doc and Dora aren’t exactly elated about their new neighbors. Supplies (e.g. fresh water, food) are limited as it is. Nevertheless, the Wittmers decide to stick around and have a go at it.
The trouble really starts when Eloise (Armas, Ballerina) shows up with servants, lavish furnishings and a whole wardrobe. To put it bluntly, she’s a manipulative, conniving, narcissistic bitch. Introducing herself as a baroness, she’s there to open a luxury hotel for the rich and idle. She immediately earns the disdain of Friedrich and Heinz then proceeds to try and pit the two men against each other. Needless to say, it all culminates in violence.
The Biblical metaphor won’t be lost on anybody from the title Eden to the woman tempting men to commit sin. I wasn’t giving too much thought to this aspect of the film. I was more interested in the idea of attempting to create a Utopia only for it to go wrong. It’s the same idea explored in The Mosquito Coast (1986) with a bit of Lord of the Flies tossed into the pot. Like Harrison Ford before him, Law portrays a man disintegrating psychologically while attempting to achieve the impossible. There is no such thing as Utopia. It never works, NEVER. Humans, hard as they might try, can’t escape their true nature. Power struggle is inevitable. The fight for survival leads many to do inhumane things. That’s what happens here.
Law does a pretty good job in the lead role only occasionally cranking it up to 11 with his depiction of a mentally unstable individual who just wants to be left alone. BTW, you’ll see more of Law here than you’ll ever want to see. He lets it all hang out in more ways than one. Kirby is also good as his comparatively saner partner, a woman who loves her burro like a child. Armas does incredible work as the truly evil Eloise. She will stop at nothing to get exactly what she wants. In one scene, she attempts to seduce a Hollywood filmmaker (Roxburgh, Moulin Rouge) who’s come to the island to get footage of Friedrich and his new society only to be rebuffed. It’s a most-deserved diss. Sweeney continues to show the width of her range as the wife who admits she married Heinz because “he asked me”. Her character gets tough over the course of the movie and it’s totally believable.
Eden definitely has pacing issues. It moves slowly at a few points. However, Howard, working from a script by Canadian screenwriter Noah Pink (Tetris), tells a compelling story. He shows in detail the day-to-day life of the people living on the uninhabited island amidst cruel nature and an unforgiving landscape. The elements- i.e. the weather, wild animals that eat their gardens- work against them in harmony. We watch as the Wittmer clan toils to eke out an existence with all its challenges including an unplanned pregnancy with no help from the not-good doctor. The birth scene is especially harsh with what’s going on around Margret during delivery.
It’s a tough watch at times, but Eden tells a compelling and weighty survival story. It sure isn’t Gilligan’s Island, that’s for sure. It’s too heavy for those looking for escapist entertainment so consider carefully before ordering your ticket.
