Writer-director Ron Howard’s projects have been hit or miss in recent years. The prolific filmmaker’s last four documentaries, Jim Henson: Idea Man, We Feed People, Rebuilding Paradise, and Pavarotti, were all well received. However, when it comes to his narrative features, such as Hillbilly Elegy, Thirteen Lives, and Inferno, critical response has widely varied by project. Howard’s latest film, a star-studded survival thriller titled Eden, is much darker and more mature than many of his recent efforts. So, is this departure from his typical style a recipe for disaster or unexpected success? The answer: neither.
Eden is based on the true story of the early European settlers of Floreana Island, which is part of Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands. Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and his wife, Dora Strauch Ritter (Vanessa Kirby), arrive on the uninhabited island in 1929, searching for a new life. The couple left their native country of Germany for moral and philosophical reasons as a response to the rise of fascism and corruption. The next to settle are Heinz Wittmer (Daniel Brühl) and his wife Margret Wittmer (Sydney Sweeney), fellow Germans who believe in Ritter’s writings and are looking to cure their young son, Harry (Jonathan Tittel), of tuberculosis. Moreover, the Wittmers want to fulfill a similar wish of simple living.
The last to arrive is a self-proclaimed Baroness named Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas). She comes to the remote island with only two men (with whom she’s sleeping), an Ecuadorian servant, and a dream to construct a luxury hotel. If anything is keeping this movie together, it’s the star-studded cast. Jude Law (Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, The Order) and Vanessa Kirby (The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Napoleon) both fully inhabit the stiff personas of their characters, slowly descending from coldness into cruelty. Daniel Brühl (Becoming Karl Lagerfeld, The Franchise) leaves an impression as well. Though his role is rather simple, it gives the narrative an important anchor.
Ana de Armas (Ballerina, Knives Out) is the clear standout in Eden. There are certain moments, admittedly, where her performance breaks and takes you out of the movie. Yet, it’s such a melodramatic role that she more than makes up for it during the rest of her screen time. The Baroness is the propulsive force of the story, and Armas is well equipped with the task. Her Baroness is equal parts charming and wicked, pathetic and entitled, but also pitiful as she attempts to manipulate those around her off the island to achieve her goal of building a hotel. Armas flaunts a captivating screen presence, unlike anyone else in the ensemble.
While the Baroness is antagonistic to all the other characters, she seems directly opposed to Sydney Sweeney (Anyone But You, Euphoria). Her character, Margret Wittmer, is a young mother and wife who merely wants to make the best of her situation. Sweeney’s acting is consistent, perhaps even more than some of her co-stars. All of Floreana’s inhabitants are morally gray, and she’s no exception. Unfortunately, Sweeney’s one downfall is a terrible German accent. It’s an instant immersion-breaker as every time she awkwardly trips over a pronunciation, it detracts from her otherwise serviceable performance. Ana de Armas’ accent is distracting at times, too, though it matches her character, and there is an in-narrative explanation. No such grace is given to Sweeney.
On a scene-by-scene basis, Eden moves at a brisk pace. One of Ron Howard’s greatest skills as a director is his ability to build extreme tension in unlikely scenarios. Eden boasts a number of nerve-racking scenes that will have audiences holding their collective breath. The stakes are high, quite literally life or death, and the framing, editing, and performances make the danger palpable. This is the most impressive feat of Eden. Howard attempts to keep this tension afloat by folding in more mature elements such as nudity and mild gruesomeness, but these aspects do not hold water independently.
Sadly, the connecting tissue between all the well-constructed scenes is weak. The screenplay, co-written by Noah Pink (Apple TV’s Tetris) and Howard, is more concerned with representing the shocking series of events that took place on the Isle of Floreana, which include unsolved disappearances and possible murders, rather than stringing together a compelling thematic foundation. The movie flirts with the idea of human desire corrupting the island. The different groups of settlers each have their unique motivations, which would have worked very well in representing clashing ideas about what the island’s future could be, but the script misses the mark.
The characters in Eden are written too poorly and regularly betray their own ideals, and not in a subversive way either. By the end, any thematic conclusion is muddled. This grand idea for a hotel, fueled by the Baroness’ greed, is positioned as the sin of the film, the antagonizing driving force. In the end credits, it’s revealed that since the events of Eden, an actual hotel has been constructed on the island and is run by the surviving family of the movie’s protagonists. It elicited a few chuckles from the world premiere audience at the Toronto Film Festival, which is far from the feeling a survival thriller should leave people with.
Eden is also hindered by its source material. No one truly knows what happened on the island. Everything that we know is a secondhand account, except for what Margret Wittmer wrote in her novel Floreana: A Woman’s Pilgrimage to the Galápagos, which could be argued is her biased perspective. Yet, Ron Howard’s movie is cobbled together without a specific vision of what really happened. While it might not be a filmmaker’s place to determine the truth of such historical events, it is their job to make a cohesive story out of it.
Many of the film’s major character decisions and plot twists are cast in a shadow of doubt, but not in a way that makes any sort of larger thematic point about doubt. It only leaves the viewer unsatisfied. If director Ron Howard and screenwriter Noah Pink constructed Eden with a precise thematic intent to scaffold the rest of the story, this would have been a surefire hit. The technical strengths of a tense thriller are on display, with a just as capable jam-packed ensemble to boot. The movie simply does not come together as it should have, and the result is lackluster.
The movie attempts to juggle too many ideas that it’s not even equipped to handle, given it chooses to take such an unconfident angle on a fairly interesting tale that deserves a more inspired take. So, Ron Howard’s Eden is neither a disaster nor a success, only another forgettable film.
Eden premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival!
Release Date: TBA.
Directed by Ron Howard.
Screenplay by Noah Pink.
Story by Ron Howard & Noah Pink.
Produced by Ron Howard, Karen Lunder, Brian Grazer, William M. Connor, Stuart Ford, & Patrick Newall.
Executive Producers: Noah Pink, Zach Garrett, Mathias Herndl, Masha Magonova, Namit Malhotra, Craig McMahon, Matt Murphie, Miguel A. Palos Jr., & David Taghioff.
Main Cast: Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Brühl, Sydney Sweeney, Ana de Armas, Jonathan Tittel, Richard Roxburgh, Felix Kammerer, & Toby Wallace.
Cinematographer: Mathias Herndl
Composer: Hans Zimmer.
Production Companies: Imagine Entertainment & AGC Studios.
Runtime: 129 minutes.
Distributor: TBA (United States) & Amazon Prime Video (International).
Rated R.
