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      Ari Aster Hasn’t Seen the Reviews for ‘Eddington’

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      The Covid-era satire has been divisive at Cannes, but the director has not seen the reviews. He’s focused on his fears about where the world is headed.The director Ari Aster has always wanted to bring a movie to the Cannes Film Festival, and he finally achieved that goal with the divisive comedy “Eddington,” which premiered here Friday. How did it feel to have his dream come true?“It’s a lot,” Aster confessed when I met him on an oceanside terrace on Sunday afternoon. “People keep asking me, ‘How are you feeling?’ And it’s like, I have no objectivity here. I feel excited, distressed, happy, detached.”Perhaps it’s fitting that Aster has gone through such an intense gamut of feelings, since his movies tend to put audiences through the wringer, too. Though “Eddington” isn’t a horror film in the vein of other Aster movies like “Hereditary” and “Misdommar,” it’s still meant to unsettle: Set in May 2020, the film explores how the early days of the pandemic inflame tensions in a small New Mexico town.As a conservative sheriff (Joaquin Phoenix) mounts a campaign against the liberal mayor (Pedro Pascal) trying to enforce a mask mandate, their fellow citizens radicalize in different ways. The sheriff’s wife (Emma Stone) and mother-in-law (Deirdre O’Connell) lean hard into internet conspiracy theories, while the teenage residents of Eddington become phone-wielding activists whose strident attitudes incur much of Aster’s satire. Early reviews have been wildly mixed, and the film has been heavily debated here in the days since its premiere.It was a beautiful day in Cannes, though the conversation with Aster was often gloomy: The director spoke earnestly about his fear of where the world is headed, and the feelings of despair that inspired him to make this movie.Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.How did you feel at the premiere?You’re sitting there wondering how it’s working for people. It’s such a big theater that it’s harder to actually gauge what’s going on. But I have no objectivity and I’m a natural paranoid, so I just lean toward that.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kristen Stewart’s ‘The Chronology of Water’ Wins Praise, But She’s Ready for Battle

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      Her directorial debut, “The Chronology of Water,” has earned good notices, but after fighting to get it made, the filmmaker wouldn’t mind a battle with reviewers.On Saturday afternoon, when I met up with Kristen Stewart on a balcony at the Cannes Film Festival, she had a confession to make: She was midway through the happiest day of her life.The night before, her directorial debut, “The Chronology of Water,” had made its premiere here, the culmination of a very long effort to make her first feature. “I’ve had this movie in my head for years,” she said. And after so many false starts, financing issues and radical creative re-imaginings, she could barely believe that she had pulled it off.“I just thought it was potentially dying every day,” she said. “It was like a shipwreck, we had to put that boat back together. It was shocking.”Adapted from Lidia Yuknavitch’s memoir of the same name, “The Chronology of Water” stars Imogen Poots as a competitive swimmer struggling to outrace a traumatic childhood marked by sexual abuse. Stewart tells the story elliptically, skipping through time as her lead struggles to make sense of a difficult life and channel her pain into an affinity for writing.The film has been well reviewed, which Stewart was pleasantly surprised by. “I’m totally willing for people to come for it,” she said. “I’m almost wanting it.” Maybe Stewart, with her avid gaze and punky ombre hair, craves that conflict because she’s used to it: “The Chronology of Water” took eight years of fighting to make. Now, she’s curious about what her career as an actress and director will look like.“I don’t think it’ll ever be this hard, and when I say ‘hard’ I put it in air quotes because I’ve never been happier in my entire life,” she said. “But when you really care about something, the weight of dropping it every day is like you’re dropping it on your toes and screaming.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Jennifer Lawrence Gets Her First Cannes Premiere. (It’s a Risky One.)

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      In “Die My Love” with Robert Pattinson, she plays a mother with postpartum depression. She was four months pregnant then and the hormones helped a lot.Years ago, at the peak of the “Hunger Games” phenomenon, Lionsgate spent heavily on lavish parties to promote the franchise at the Cannes Film Festival. Private villas were rented and transformed into extravagant replicas of the movies’ opulent Capitol, complete with servers in eccentric wigs, chocolate fountains that flowed for hours and enough colorful macarons to feed a small city.Though the organizers had clearly missed the film’s critique of capitalist excess, the “Hunger Games” villa parties were still a decadent good time. But what’s surprising is that for years, those soirees were the only thing that ever lured the series’ star, Jennifer Lawrence, to Cannes. Despite being the kind of glamorous, Oscar-winning actress the festival loves to showcase, Lawrence has never starred in a film premiering at Cannes until now.At a Sunday news conference for the movie “Die My Love,” she seemed just as surprised. Turning to her director, Lynne Ramsay, Lawrence said, “I really cannot believe that I’m here with you and this happened.” But the film, which is already the subject of awards chatter for Lawrence’s no-holds-barred performance, is another indication that the 34-year-old actress is itching to push further into darker, riskier material.Adapted from a novel by Ariana Harwicz, the drama stars Lawrence and Robert Pattinson as Grace and Jackson, a young couple struggling with Grace’s postpartum depression. At first, she just appears a bit listless, muttering to herself and snapping at chatty cashiers who try to draw her into conversation. “Everybody gets a little loopy the first year,” advises her mother-in-law, played by Sissy Spacek. “You’ll come back.”But Grace doesn’t. As tension continues to build with Jackson, she begins acting out in increasingly upsetting ways — hurling herself through a glass door, stripping down to her underwear at a child’s party — just to feel anything that might snap her out of her stupor. Though the film is not an easy watch, Lawrence dives into her character’s descent with full commitment.At the news conference, the actress said she was four months pregnant with her second child when she began shooting the film. “I had great hormones,” she said, “which is really the only kind of way I would be able to dip into this sort of visceral emotion.” Still, she had to draw a strong line between herself and the character.“As a mother, it was really hard to separate what I would do as opposed to what she would do,” Lawrence said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Ari Aster’s ‘Eddington’ Polarizes Critics at Cannes Film Festival

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      Set in the pandemic’s early days, the noted horror director’s Covid comedy satirizes the national mood during lockdown. Reactions have been polarizing.Ari Aster, the director behind the horror films “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” is no stranger to upsetting an audience. But with his new movie “Eddington,” which premiered Friday at the Cannes Film Festival, Aster may have devised his most harrowing cinematic experience yet: forcing us to relive 2020.Set in May of that year, the film chronicles a clash in the fictional New Mexico town of Eddington between the conservative sheriff, Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), and the liberal mayor, Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal), after the latter insists on mask mandates and lockdowns during the pandemic. “There is no Covid in Eddington,” insists Cross as he refuses to wear a mask, though his mounting frustration with Garcia may also have something to do with the mayor’s complicated romantic past with Cross’s wife (Emma Stone).To bring his enemy down a peg, Cross decides to mount his own mayoral campaign, plastering his cop car with misspelled banners (“Your Being Manipulated”) and spouting conspiracy theories about his opponent that he posts online. But as Eddington erupts in Black Lives Matter protests and teenage activists begin training their phone camera on Cross, hoping to catch him in an act of police brutality, the escalating tensions in this small town threaten to claim lives right and left.Aster is keen to zero in on the moment when our fraying social fabric was torn apart, and the movie has already inspired battle lines as strongly drawn as the political sides “Eddington” means to satirize. Early reviews have been wildly mixed, and at a cocktail party that followed the Cannes press screening, I watched several critics square off: Though fans of the film found it bold and daring, detractors called it unfunny, too on the nose, and more eager to lampoon annoying liberals than the conservative main characters.Will audiences be anxious to revisit the fraught early months of the pandemic when “Eddington” hits theaters on July 18? The cast is stocked with A-listers — in addition to Phoenix, Pascal, and Stone, Austin Butler also appears as an online cult leader — but for all of Aster’s evident craft, “Eddington” is hardly a crowd-pleaser. He initially keeps the proceedings relatively grounded, but the second half of the film spirals into a sort of absurd surrealism that will feel familiar to anyone who saw Aster’s last movie, “Beau is Afraid” (2023).Then again, that might not be many people: “Beau,” which also starred Phoenix, was a costly box-office bust that reportedly lost A24 around $35 million. To release Aster’s next movie during the superhero-laden summer season is a risky bit of counterprogramming: Amid all those capes, could audiences be enticed to choose masks instead? More

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      At the Cannes Film Festival, the Mood Is Uncertain and Unsettled

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      The threat of tariffs and the struggles of Hollywood have dampened what is usually an international party. Even the early standouts are somber.For days leading up to the opening of the Cannes Film Festival, it seemed that rain would dampen the 78th edition. The film gods spared the worst. The red carpet remained dry Tuesday and so did the beautiful people parading into the Lumière, the grand auditorium where each year cheek-kissing, glad-handing stars and deal makers get this generally fizzy party going. At the 2024 edition, a barefoot chanteuse had sung Bowie’s “Modern Love” to Greta Gerwig, the president of the jury, delighting her and everyone else in attendance. This year, by contrast, the atmosphere inside the room was moody and felt more uncertain than the weather.There were the usual smiles, couture gowns and starry entrances. Yet overall it was a fairly sober affair, and only partly because the evening featured a poignant tribute to David Lynch, who died in January. When Juliette Binoche, the president of the main competition jury, took the stage, she spoke about the obligation of artists to testify on behalf of others, mentioning the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7 and quoting the Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, who in April was killed with 10 family members in an Israeli airstrike. Hassouna is featured in a documentary here, “Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk.”Later during the ceremony, Robert De Niro received an honorary Palme d’Or (handed to him by Leonardo DiCaprio), and spoke of democracy and the arts. “America’s philistine president has had himself appointed the head of one of our premiere cultural institutions,” he said, an apparent reference to President Trump’s naming himself chairman of the Kennedy Center in February. De Niro then referenced the topic that started phones pinging throughout the entertainment industry on May 4, and led to stark headlines and head-scratching.Leonardo DiCaprio giving Robert De Niro an honorary Palme d’Or.Sameer Al-Doumy/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo wit, President Trump’s May 4 announcement on social media that he was imposing a 100 percent tariff on movies “produced in foreign lands,” an issue he called a national security threat. The next day, a White House spokesman, Kush Desai, said that no final decisions had been made on such tariffs, but that the administration was “exploring all options to deliver on President Trump’s directive to safeguard our country’s national and economic security while Making Hollywood Great Again.”Like other film lovers, I responded to this tariff threat with a mixture of concern and confusion. Among other things, how such tariffs would work is baffling given the movie world’s complexity and internationalism, or how it’s possible to even define which films are “produced in foreign lands.” Marvel’s “Thunderbolts*” was partly shot outside the United States; when Florence Pugh steps off a skyscraper in the movie, she topples from a building in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The specter of retaliatory tariffs from other countries is another concern, given how reliant American companies are on the global market. In 2024, “Inside Out 2” was the top-grossing movie both domestically and overseas, with 61.6 percent of its overall box office coming from abroad.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cannes Film Festival 2025: Is This an Early Front-runner for the Palme d’Or?

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      “Sound of Falling,” which tracks four German girls over the course of a century, drew early raves. But it might not go the distance.Survey journalists during the first few days of the Cannes Film Festival, and you’re likely to hear some grumbling. Though it may seem uncharitable to complain in such a glittery, glamorous location, it’s practically tradition for critics here to shrug at the initial salvo of movies, wondering how long it will take for a viable contender to emerge that could win the prestigious Palme d’Or.Sometimes, it takes quite awhile. Unlike other major film festivals, Cannes, which started Tuesday, doesn’t front-load its highest-profile titles: Significant movies unspool every day over two weeks, and the Palme winner often does not debut until the festival’s back half.This year, though, an early pacesetter seems to have emerged. Directed by Mascha Schilinski, “Sound of Falling” skips through time to track four girls who have lived on the same German farm over the course of a century. From the prewar era to the modern day, these young women contend with many of the same issues, from nascent sexual curiosity to brutally violent repression.It’s arty and lengthy in the way that Cannes juries often favor, and many of the early reviews were rapturous, especially those by critics who had prescreened the movie before the festival began. To hear those scribes tell it, “Sound of Falling” is “transfixing” (The Hollywood Reporter), “astonishingly poised and ambitious”(Variety), and “a high-water mark that will be hard for another feature to reach” (Vulture).Still, the response on the ground wasn’t entirely positive after Wednesday’s premiere. A critic friend texted me that he found the film “pretty vacuous” and the fest’s popular Screen International grid, which compiles scores from a dozen critics on a scale from one to four, gave “Sound of Falling” an average of 2.8. That’s respectable, but last year’s Palme winner, “Anora,” hit 3.3, while the previous victor, “Anatomy of a Fall,” earned a 3.0.Can passion win out over consensus? Stay tuned. More

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      Cannes Reacts to Gérard Depardieu Verdict With Soul-Searching and Shrugs

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      The actor, who was found guilty of sexual assault on Tuesday, was a festival stalwart and had brought nearly 30 movies to the event.In the French film industry, there are perhaps no two bigger institutions than the Cannes Film Festival and the movie star Gérard Depardieu. And on the first day of this year’s festival, Depardieu, who won the best actor prize here in 1990, was found guilty of sexual assault.Depardieu’s conviction was seen as a victory for the #MeToo movement in France, which took hold more slowly than in the United States. He was given an 18-month suspended sentence on charges of assaulting two women in 2021 on the set of the movie “Les Volets Verts.”In the seaside sun of Cannes, Depardieu’s conviction was met with serious consideration by some and a nonchalant shrug by others.But whatever their view, everybody was talking about it, including at a news conference on Tuesday to introduce the competition jury to the media. Reporters asked Juliette Binoche, the French actress who leads this year’s jury, about the verdict multiple times.Depardieu’s conviction was a result for the #MeToo movement, she said, which was also having an effect on the inclusion of women in the competition and jury lineup at Cannes. “I think that the festival is increasingly in step with what’s happening today,” Binoche said, adding that in France, “our #MeToo wave took some while to gain strength.”Many in France took a skeptical view of the movement at first. In a 2018 open letter to Le Monde newspaper, Catherine Deneuve and more than 100 other Frenchwomen in the entertainment industry complained that a wave of public accusations was creating a totalitarian climate.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cannes Film Festival 2025: What to Watch From This Year’s Star-Packed Lineup

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      The event is packed with high-profile English-language movies, including the new “Mission: Impossible” and a Jennifer Lawrence-Robert Pattinson drama.The 78th edition of the Cannes Film Festival begins Tuesday, and this lineup is particularly star-packed. Which titles could follow in the path of last year’s big breakouts like “Anora” and “The Substance”? Here are the stories we have our eye on this year.It’s a Hollywood-heavy lineup.Though Cannes is traditionally known for showcasing the best in global cinema, the lineup is packed with so many high-profile English-language films that it could be mistaken for a festival in Hollywood.The biggest premieres include “Die My Love,” which pairs Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson as a couple in a crumbling marriage; the new Spike Lee film, “Highest 2 Lowest,” with Denzel Washington; and Wes Anderson’s caper “The Phoenician Scheme,” with Benicio Del Toro leading an ensemble that includes Michael Cera, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hanks and Riz Ahmed.There’s also the romantic drama “The History of Sound,” with Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor; Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague,” a tribute to the French new wave; and “Eddington” from Ari Aster (“Midsommar,” “Hereditary”), with an A-list cast featuring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone and Austin Butler. And if that weren’t Hollywood-heavy enough, Tom Cruise will debut his final “Mission: Impossible” movie on the festival’s second day.Actors are making their directorial debuts.Kristen Stewart, Scarlett Johansson and Harris Dickinson are all Cannes mainstays, but for this year’s fest, the three actors are instead stepping behind the camera for their feature directing debuts. And lest you assume they’re making vanity projects, all three declined starring roles in their own movies.Stewart’s long-in-the-works “The Chronology of Water” will bow first, starring Imogen Poots as a young woman struggling with issues of addiction and sexuality. Next up is “Urchin,” from the “Babygirl” breakout Dickinson, about a London drifter (Frank Dillane) struggling to find his place in society. And the second week of the festival will debut Johansson’s “Eleanor the Great,” a comedy starring June Squibb.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More