By Robert Bellissimo
EDEN is about a group of characters who abandon civilization for the Galapagos Islands for their own various reasons, which results in murder.
The film is engaging with incredible performances by the entire cast, especially Ana de Armas, who plays an outrageous femme fatale. The cinematography by Mathias Herndl was dark and gloomy, which was perfect for the emotional life of the story. But, while the film is enjoyable enough, the film lacks substance and the characters are mostly one-dimensional.
The essence of the film is that people will do anything to survive in life and death situations, which was obvious from the way the characters were clashing. However, in doing so, Howard makes the murders and backstabbing fairly predictable. When Ron Howard presented the film at TIFF, he said the film had complex, layered characters.
With all due respect to Mr. Howard, if anything was complex about these roles, it was lost on me. However, the dynamic between the couple Dora Ritter (Vanessa Kirby) and Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) was portrayed with a degree of depth and complexity.
What interested me the most was the applause coming from the audience when one of the characters is killed. I was surprised that murder would lead to such a reaction, but it just goes to show you that violence lives in all of us, which the film portrays quite well.
If you like survival/Neo-Noir movies, the film is worth seeing once, but maybe not twice.
Eden is playing at TIFF ’24. For more information, click here.
