‘Eden:’ Ron Howard’s Bold, Ambitious Film Boasts Exceptional Work By Ana De Armas, Vanessa Kirby & Sydney Sweeney

I’ve never been all that keen on Ron Howard as a film director. He’s certainly more than capable, but I find most of his heralded achievements overrated, including Splash, Cocoon, Backdraft Apollo 13 and, especially A Beautiful Mind—that Oscar should have gone to Robert Altman for Gosford Park. (I do love me some Rush, though.) So, when I heard that his latest effort, Eden, was dividing critics at TIFF last year, I assumed I’d fall on the negative side. Well, you know what they say about assuming…?

In a remarkable departure for the septuagenarian filmmaker, Eden is a bold, ambitious, stirring and, ultimately, brutal and bleak look at human nature–a work that hits exceptionally hard in these Trumpian times. Eden’s characters are living in the Darwinian world of survival of the fittest, but add to it, survival of the most cunning, nasty and deceitful.

Based on real characters and events and set in the early 1930s, Eden tells the story of a gaggle of outsiders who wish to escape a world going to fascist hell. (The parallels to today boggle the mind.)

German born botanist and philosopher Dr. Frederick Ritter (Jude Law) and his partner Dora Strauch (Vanessa Kirby) have settled on Floreana, one of the more desolate and remote of the Galápagos islands, off the coast of Ecuador, abandoning modern society in order to create a more utopian way of life. Ritter is quite the enigmatic character, a seeming misanthrope who also seeks attention, making sure his writings are reported to the international press. Strauch is suffering from MS, but is determined to be self-sufficient.

Inspired by Ritter, Heinz Wittmer (Daniel Brühl), his wife Margaret (Sydney Sweeney) and son Harry (Jonathan Tittel) soon arrive on Floreana, but are not welcomed by Ritter and Strauch. Quite the contrary, the two do all they can to sabotage the naive family.

And when the pretentious Baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas) sweeps in with her own entourage as well as hopes of constructing a luxury hotel along the seashore, the ethics and morals of every individual are challenged in one manner or another.

That’s enough plot, since many of the supreme joys and nail-biting terrors inherent in Eden can be found in how the narrative unfolds and twists and turns.

The gutsy and impressive screenplay is by Noah Pink with story credit to Pink and Howard, based on the accounts of the survivors—and just who survives is one of the more beguiling aspects of this incredulous saga.

The cast is exceptional, buoyed by a sterling trio of strong female performances beginning with Kirby who manages to make a harsh and selfish figure quite sympathetic. Sweeney is completely immersive and almost unrecognizable as the pragmatic wife who must deal with so many betrayals. De Armas has a bloody, campy field day playing a surface high society Pied-Piper who fiendishly plots to destroy everyone in her way. She’s her own special creation and a frightening one at that; devious, delicious, destructive.

The male cast members are also quite good, with Law showing us the uglier side of humanity, and a more subtle Brühl, as a battle-scarred WWI vet trying desperately to change his fortune.

The Baroness’s two sex puppets are portrayed by Felix Kammerer (the lead in Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front) and Toby Wallace (The Bikeriders). Both prove to be much more than just sexy eye candy–although they fit that bill as well.

All the above characters are either German or Austrian and the actors effectively speak with German accents.

With so many of us feeling disillusioned, disgusted and depressed by the current cultural, political and social climate, it’s quite seductive to ponder escaping our current milieu for a less complicated, more nature-oriented one. Alas, as Eden shows us, there would still be humans around. And to quote Dr. Zaius from Beneath the Planet of the Apes, “Man is evil, capable of nothing but destruction.”

With Eden, Howard has crafted his darkest, most haunting cinematic adventure. And, I’d argue, his best.

Vertical will release Eden in theaters August 22, 2025.