Film reviews: Eddington and Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
A New Mexico border town goes berserk and civil war through a child's eyes

Eddington
Directed by Ari Aster (R)
★★
Ari Aster's new film is "really going to divide and aggravate people," said Brian Tallerico in RogerEbert.com. "It's designed to be divisive," and "if you hate it, it's kind of done its job." Set in a New Mexico town at the start of the Covid pandemic, Eddington pits a mask-hating sheriff played by Joaquin Phoenix against a nominally progressive mayor played by Pedro Pascal, and while the story touches on conspiracy theories, viral culture, the George Floyd protests, and "everything we raged about" in 2020, all of it adds up to a "deliberately hollow provocation" that tells us we'll never understand how things got so ugly.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
You've heard of movies that offer escape from the stresses of the world, said Lindsey Bahr in the Associated Press. "Eddington is very much the opposite of that." It's "not incompetently done or unwatchable," but it "just doesn't feel like a whole of anything other than a cinematic expression of broken brains," one that culminates in an explosion of gun violence. Coming five years after America did come apart, it "somehow seems both too late and too soon," and "feels like the last thing any of us need." But after the "broad-swipe" satire of the film's first half, said David Fear in Rolling Stone, the director of Hereditary and Midsommar throws us into full nightmare territory again, creating a film that "chills you, unnerves you, and makes you want to crawl out of your skin." It's another Aster movie that does what it aims to do. "You just wish this one didn't feel so close to being nonfiction."
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight
Directed by Embeth Davidtz (R)
★★★
Even if you despise its adult protagonists, "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight is an enthralling watch," said Amy Nicholson in the Los Angeles Times. Like the best-selling 2001 memoir it's based on, the film offers a child's-eye view of being brought up by prejudiced white settler parents during the war for independence that created Zimbabwe, and the movie's wild-haired young star, Lexi Venter, "belongs in the pantheon of filmland's savage moppets." Venter plays the author, nicknamed Bobo, at 8, and Dogs presents Bobo and her teen sister "the way kids actually are: self-centered, often dishonest, inclined to brattiness," said Kyle Smith in The Wall Street Journal. Bobo has been taught to fear that Black guerrillas could slaughter her in her sleep, and the movie "simply plants us without judgment in this startling lifestyle."
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Writer-director Embeth Davidtz, who also plays Bobo's alcoholic mother, spent some of her own childhood in apartheid South Africa, and she proves "ideally suited to the story," handling it with a sensitivity that "doesn't lapse into sentimentality." Bobo eventually questions her learned bigotry, said Robert Daniels in Screen Daily, but because Davidtz's film is locked in a child's perspective, the Black characters remain fairly one-dimensional. And as brave as the film may be, the storytelling strategy "presents Davidtz with a tricky question to answer: Why should we care about the perspective of a bigoted white girl?"
-
Elizabeth Gilbert’s favorite books about women overcoming difficulties
Feature The author recommends works by Tove Jansson, Lauren Groff, and more
-
Book reviews: ‘Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution’ and ‘Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival’
Feature A Supreme Court justice sets out her philosophy and the English Renaissance’s wild child
-
Jump scare! Evil villain! These are fall’s most exciting horror movie releases.
The Week Recommends An Airbnb rental gone wrong and another ‘Frankenstein’ adaptation highlight this autumn’s horror crop
-
Critics’ choice: Three small yet magical Korean restaurants
Feature A chef creates magic from scallops, a restaurant’s no-waste ethos, and more
-
Music reviews: Dijon and Big Thief
Feature “Baby!” and “Double Infinity”
-
Sabrina Carpenter: Pop’s clown princess
Feature The pop star shows humor in her latest album
-
6 sought-after homes in San Francisco
Feature Featuring a 1900 painted lady Victorian North of the Panhandle and views of the Golden Gate Bridge in Russian Hill
-
Film reviews: The Long Walk, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, and The Baltimorons
Feature Young men must keep moving or else, the avowed capper to a beloved British series, and an unlikely romance takes hold on Christmas Eve