The new Ron Howard film “Eden” is an unsettling take on the effects of human desperation, raising apt questions on the modern purpose of philosophy, community, and charity.
Their mission is complicated, however, by the arrival of additional settlers, and of an altogether different psychological bent: the German couple Heinz and Margret Wittmer (Daniel Brühl and Sydney Sweeney), who seek only to find healing for their son Harry (Jonathan Tittel), and the self-titled Austrian baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas) and her crew of doting gigolos.
The two-hour adventure is based on the true story of Floreana Island, a volcanic outpost in the Galápagos first inhabited by European settlers in the early 20th century. The pioneers were the German physician Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and his would-be partner Dore Strauch (Vanessa Kirby), a disabled woman who supports his grand vision of societal renewal by way of a forthcoming radical manifesto.
Collaboration is hardly the theme of the narrative, though it is clear that none of the islanders can quite survive on their own. Instead, a shared sense of vanity and self-preservation colors their interactions, with the Wittmers being the slight exception. Nevertheless, pride gives way to plotting, which gives way to an increasingly deadly form of pugnacity.
“God is dead,” proclaims the Nietzschean antihero Dr. Ritter as he feebly forms his magnum opus, which he is to distribute to the masses via the Western press from his island-made “Garden of Eden.” Away from the world he will formulate the cure for its ills, rescuing postbellum Europe from its other inevitable collapse.
It all sounds eerily familiar. We are always just one great thinker away from salvation, comprising world peace, human fraternity, and an end to all interpersonal strife. And Heaven knows the thinker must be a German! Alas, the reality in “Eden” is as contrary as ever.
The lack of basic human cooperation on Floreana Island is apparent enough, with Dr. Ritter among the worst offenders. It is no surprise, then, that his program of renewal fails first and foremost in the isolated community itself, long before it has a chance to reach the shores of the Continent.
Even the animals in the story are victims of savagery, pawns in a zero-sum game with deadly stakes. It’s “Lord of the Flies” meets “Jurassic Park”—and the exotic, grotesque predators are the humans.
It requires quite a bit of cinematic gumption to pull this off on the screen, and each lead gives a strong performance, even if the actual storyline is strained at points. Howard’s direction gives the film its necessary gravity, and it does feel like no time is wasted on triviality, even if the runtime is about 30 minutes longer than seems necessary with the story as it is. One does wonder what could have been accomplished if certain aborted story arcs were simply eliminated to make room for more compelling ideas or character development.
One point of emphasis that could have given the film more spice, though, was God himself. Perhaps unsurprisingly, actual religion plays no part in the film, other than as a passing topic dismissed by Dr. Ritter and apparently nonexistent for the other characters. In that sense, God is in fact dead on Floreana Island, though this is likely one of the sources of its grief.
Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.
