TIFF 2024: Eden Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Director Ron Howard has mostly stayed away from the major Hollywood scene as of late, spending much of his time directing documentaries in between mixed streaming features, 2020’s Hillbilly Elegy and 2022’s Thirteen Lives. But with Eden, he is stepping back into the feature game with a star-studded film that is a departure from what most audiences are used to seeing from Howard. An interesting character piece that is certainly not afraid to go to some pretty dark places, this historical survival thriller is tense and surprisingly brutal as it follows the creation of a new prospective post-WWI society and its subsequent demise at the hands of the inevitable corruption of man. While it may run a touch too long, clocking in at just over the 2-hour mark, its incredible cast, featuring the likes of Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Sydney Sweeney, and Ana de Armas just to name a few, all deliver as what makes the film ultimately work in spite of its issues, is that ensemble. Their performances, especially from Sweeney and de Armas, add compelling complexity to the arc of the ensemble dynamic over the course of the film.

The story is centered around a married German couple Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Law) and his wife Dora (Kirby) looking for a new life by moving to Floreana, an uninhabited island in the Galápagos archipelago. Believing they have found paradise, in reality, it soon became everything but as visitors arrived to disrupt their desired solitude. As news of their exploits continued to spread across the mainland, others looking for a second chance as well packed up their belonging and moved to Floreana as well. Not particularly keen on the idea of neighbors, the Ritters were perhaps not the most welcoming to the Margret Wittmer (Sweeney) and her husband Heinz (Daniel Brühl). However, none were ready for the arrival of the force of nature that was Countess Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (de Armas). An over-the-top personality, for better or worse, she, and her intentions for the island, rubbed many of the other inhabitants the wrong way. In the end, much of the drama came from watching these characters learn to coexist with one another, something that proved to be a roller coaster in and of itself.

The devolution of the dynamic between the characters would go to some pretty dark lengths over time, as their desperation grew and their survival instincts began to set in. Something that was just a matter of time, it did take some time to get there but it did not feel any less earned, using that as a jumping off point for even more tension. Again, it all works because of the performances across the board. All delivering, the standouts were the aforementioned Sweeney and de Armas. As the grounding force of the film, Sweeney’s Margaret was great while in the middle of all the other personalities. On the other hand, de Armas shines as a campy villain character unlike anything she’s ever played before.

Eden is a slow burn thriller, showing a different side of Ron Howard, and a great ensemble piece that is not afraid to get dark when it needs to.        

still courtesy of Prime Video

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.