'Eden' review: Starry cast left stranded in Ron Howard's dull thriller

Courtesy of Vertical Entertainment

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Considering its limited marketing and even more limited theatrical release, you probably didn’t even know that “Eden,” a film directed by Oscar-winner Ron Howard and starring a stacked cast including Sydney Sweeney, Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas, and Daniel Brühl, was opening this weekend. That might not be such a surprise once you see the finished product: a messy, uneven attempt to dramatize the conflicting true events that unfolded on the Galapagos Islands nearly a century ago in the aftermath of World War I.

Howard, a filmmaker known for mainstream crowd-pleasers like “The Da Vinci Code,” “A Beautiful Mind,” and “The Grinch,” doesn’t usually dabble in material this lurid. “Eden” comes with animal slaughter, sexual obsession, lust, and Jude Law sporting a set of unsettling metal teeth. Howard has said in interviews that the project was meant to push him out of his comfort zone, which is admirable, but it often feels like he’s too far out of his element to really capture the grisly edges the story demands.

Set in the early 1920s as Germany begins to slide into fascism, the story follows Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Law) and his partner Dore Strauch (Kirby), who abandon Europe to carve out a supposed utopia on the remote island of Floreana. Ritter envisions a society free from religion and family obligations, and his diary entries gain notoriety after being published in regional newspapers. That publicity lures in a young couple (Brühl and Sweeney) hoping the island air might cure their son’s tuberculosis. Instead of welcoming them, Ritter forces the family to set up camp in a canyon far from his compound, determined to keep outsiders at bay.

The isolation grows more complicated with the arrival of Baroness Eloise (de Armas) and her servants, who dream of building a luxury hotel on the island. Soon, ideological clashes, personal rivalries, and tangled desires begin to fester. Sweeney’s character’s pregnancy only heightens the unease, culminating in a harrowing birth sequence that, following “Immaculate,” cements Sweeney as Hollywood’s go-to for disturbing on-screen deliveries.

The cast embraces the melodrama, but after a while you can sense the energy draining. Shot during the SAG strike on a waiver, “Eden” has the feel of a project the actors took on out of convenience rather than passion. The script doesn’t help, constantly shifting tones and genres until it plays less like a cohesive film and more like a bloated, repetitive season of “Survivor.” The one saving grace is Mathias Herndl’s sweeping cinematography, with Queensland, Australia doubling convincingly for the Galapagos.

Howard’s ambitions are commendable, and the film’s final moments, outlining what became of the real-life figures, are compelling. But by then, the audience’s patience has long worn thin. “Eden” ends up stranded between prestige aspirations and pulp execution, leaving us wishing we had chosen a more rewarding cinematic destination.

Grade: C

EDEN is now playing in theaters.