I am the embodiment of perfection.
Sometimes, you just find a film to fill in time. This is one of those movies.
In 2024, Ron Howard technically released ‘Eden’ to strictly German audiences. This survival thriller, set amongst the beautiful isle of Floreana, concerns three groups of adventurers fighting for land and resources. These European settlers were to become the focus of the Press, ending with murder and deception.
The film covers the fictionalised retelling of the year or so between the arrival of Heinz (Daniel Brühl) and Margaret (Sydney Sweeney) Wittmer, and their son Harry (Jonathan Tittel), and the departure of Dora Ritter (Vanessa Kirby), following the death of Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law). During this time, the Baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas) and her companions/lovers Rudolph Lorenz (Felix Kammerer) and Robert Phillipson (Toby Wallace) arrive and attempt to begin their work to build an exclusive luxury hotel. After months of mind games and drama, the Baroness and her companion Robert are dead, and Dr. Ritter soon follows of food poisoning.
To give you the quickest version of a review…this is a mixed bag. Compelling performances pull along a script that feels a touch too reverent to the history for its own good, and I cannot really recommend it as anything special. But Ana de Armas is kind of spectacular in it, so I assume a certain segment of film goers will enjoy it despite the flaws.
There is a moment about halfway through the film that really exemplifies the performance de Armas is giving, which is the only reason to watch the film. The inhabitants of the island sit and watch their visitors play classical music, and Margaret Wittmer is so overwhelmed that she begins to cry. Not to be outdone, the Baroness dips her finger into her drink and drips it onto her cheeks so she can pretend she is also crying. It’s one of many moments where she is performing for no audience, but it is directly followed up by Allan Hancock laughing in her face during an attempt at seduction at the absurdity of it all. Her wiles and beauty have failed her, and the following 30 minutes of screen time she has are about her loss of control over this ridiculous situation she’s found herself in.
So much of the film hinges on Ana de Armas playing the Baroness to invisible cameras. She laughs, she preens, she seduces, and none of it can come off as natural. This is a woman convinced of her ability to manipulate people, and we see how she overplays her hand over and over again. This is a malignant force, who poisons her neighbours’ souls and plays into jealousies that she created to begin with. One of her lackeys admits that her persona is pulled directly from the movies, which she manages to pull off through her theatrics and jerking fear.
Jude Law plays her opposite and equal. A man who espouses principles he has to keep convincing himself of, which becomes impossible once he is in opposition to the decadent hedonism of the Baroness. Ritter is just as selfish as the Baroness, and his idealism only lives on through his wife Dora, played by Vanessa Kirby.
That leaves the Wittmer family, who are the moral core of the film and also not great. Sweeney, Brühl, and Tittel try their best as the young German family making a life for themselves on the Isle of Floreana, but the truth is that their plot is weak and comparatively boring. Sweeney plays the vulnerable young bride well, but even the scene where she gives birth while being attacked by wild dogs feels weirdly hollow. Mostly because the film only cares about the Wittmers in context of the wider cast. They react, but do not act.
Sweeney should theoretically hold the film in its last act. Once the Baroness is dead, she’s given a lot of space to be suspicious and hold the film’s motifs about truth and nobility at her heart. Play the big emotions and earn her paycheck. But she’s oddly calm throughout. The film wants her practicality to read as strength, but it’s just another opportunity for her to play it small where the script should play it large. It almost reads as a Lady Macbeth style take over, but without the pathos or emotional depth. She schemes to keep what they have, but it’s both out of step with the character as established and uncompelling in its own right. Her big power move of nursing her baby during interrogation scans, but it doesn’t impact. Not helped by the fact her accent remains mysterious and inconsistent.
If this film reminds me of any other, it’s 2023’s ‘Babylon’, which also hinged on a clunky script but still remained mostly watchable. Ana de Armas is about as enthralling (and oddly cast, if I’m being honest) as Margot Robbie, but distinctly grittier. The film feels alive basically only when she’s on screen, which makes her death at the climax frustrating as a viewer. The film holds off for as long as it can from that point, basically acknowledging that Sweeney and Brühl cannot hold this ship together. Not with this material, anyway.
That switch wouldn’t matter if the film held some sort of charm or humour to it outside of de Armas. The cast certainly have the ability to do so, but the screenplay either doesn’t care enough to provide them with that quality of material, or is too impressed by the grimness of the situation.
The thing about Ron Howard as a director is that he is good at character and emotion. His eclectic filmography is stacked with great performances that command the narrative, rather than the other way around. My favourite example of this is Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah in ‘Splash’ (1984), who have such good chemistry that you forget the film is bonkers. While he does that here in moments, he seems primarily interested in the wider history. Not helped by Noah Pink’s script. It’s fairly solid, but the film rarely plays into the absurdity of the scenario.
Dora Ritter grieving her donkey should have a tinge of farce, but instead it’s just something that happens. Jude Law’s pretentious manifesto is prime to offer the viewer some levity, but instead, it’s just another opportunity for heaviness. Sweeney and Brühl get even less, and aren’t even allowed to play straight men to the chaos with any real pizazz.
The film is bookended by the Wittmer’s arrival and choice to remain on Floreana. Nice in theory, bland in practice. The screenplay doesn’t care enough about these people to give them dimensionality. Despite the fact they’re meant to be our protagonists. Instead, they’re just “good” people without depth. Pink is clearly enamoured with the Baroness, who gets the best lines and moments, which is understandable. But the result is a script that feels imbalanced. There’s too many people given too little to do, while the characters who should realistically take up less space are given all of it.
That being said, the film is watchable. At times it’s very good. Others…fine. Ana de Armas is genuinely giving one of my favourite performances of the year thus far! Which is why I’m shocked it failed to find a better distributor than Vertical Entertainment, the home of films that sound good on paper but nobody seems interested in watching. ‘Eden’ is solid enough that it definitely could find an audience if marketed correctly. Ron Howard is a name unto himself, and it’s a shame that his biggest risk in a very long time will almost assuredly not pay off.
Can I recommend it as good? Absolutely not. But I think most people who watch it will enjoy it, and those who watch more that ten films a year will get a kick out of the better moments.