The Garden of Eden is the aspiration of humanity whether or not you believe in it: a paradise where you have no fears and live in peace, beauty and harmony forever and ever. While a lovely aspiration, any search for this place on Earth is a mirage, a fool’s errand revealing something true about the searcher if they stop for a second and think about it. Ron Howard’s Eden mimics the Biblical place as a movie: there’s something in there that feels important about the human condition; and yet, it’s much more likely that it is a mirage the viewer creates in their mind that what is actually on screen.
The “Eden” in this case is Floreana island in the Galapagos islands. Post WWI, disillusioned German Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and his partner Dore Strauch (Vanessa Kirby) leave “civilized” society in hopes of starting a new one, which Friedrich will write a manifesto about…or so he tells the newspapers. Ritter/Strauch’s drastic lifestyle choices get published and inspire others to search Floreana. This includes practical Ritter admirers like Heinz Wittmer (Daniel Bruhl) and his wife Margret (Sydney Sweeney) and family, as well as dreamers like, wait for it, Baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas), who desire to build a hotel for the super rich.
That’s 3 wildly different life philosophies, I wonder what happens when they rub against each other on a near inhospitable island? Like director Ron Howard, I see what he thinks he sees. There’s some deep, fascinating story about the human condition that can be told here. But when you’re best known as the best possible version of an invisible director, it’s hard to drive home what “you’re seeing.” This movie has a point of view, but not Howard’s, who just pilfered it from the stories he read from the survivors. As such, this movie never quite delivers whatever message Howards wants to deliver. We’re instead left with more questions than answers, but not in the good way, as it feels Eden decided to not say anything when it should have tried to say at least something.
Fortunately for director Ron, the actors all see what he sees too, and really try to make Eden work as best they can. Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Felix Kammerer, and Sydney Sweeney really step up, and take their excellent arcs and make them fascinating to watch as character studies. Ana de Armas takes what is a plot device instead of a person, and at least makes the Baroness the right mixture of pitiful, dangerous, and intoxicatingly charismatic. Even the more supporting players like Daniel Bruhl and Richard Roxburgh really try to extract as much as they can out of the story, even if there wasn’t that much to extract to begin with.
I’m certain Eden would under the right circumstances. Can we try again maybe with Yorgos Lanthimos? or Ruben Ostlund? Or Darren Aronofsky? Apologies to Ron Howard, but even Michael Bay’s Eden would have been more interesting, as Ana De Armas slowly becomes a sex cannibal and praying mantis’s all of her conquests. Now THAT’s Eden!