Chrissy vs. Eden (2024)

Canadian Correspondent Chrissy has been unfrosted with a trip to Ron Howard’s motion picture production of EDEN, as we reach the culmination of our EDEN AFFAIR series!

EDEN

Starring Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Bruhl, Sydney Sweeney and Ana de Armes.

Directed by; Ron Howard

Streaming on Prime.

The Galapagos Island of Floreana, as portrayed in Ron Howard’s 2024 film Eden, is equally beautiful and brutal. The same can be said for the group of original inhabitants of the island. They are beautiful, scarred, and ambitious people longing to do something spectacularly different from what polite society expects of them.

 In their own ways, each of them minus maybe Sydney Sweeney’s character, is troubled aka very fucked up. To make it on the Island of Floreana in 1929, just after the First World War, is to rely only on oneself and to discover how cutthroat you can be in order to survive and take it all for yourself.

Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby play the original inhabitants, Frederick Ritter and Dore Strauch, a former dentist who believes he can craft a new blueprint for life, and his lover, a woman afflicted with multiple sclerosis who puts her faith in Ritter’s claims that the island can heal her and slow her disease. Kirby’s character had so much potential in this film, but I felt she was criminally underused in the screenplay.

Next comes a young couple and their son: Heinz and Margret Wittmar. Heinz, a veteran suffering from PTSD, brings his young 2nd wife to Floreana when he decides he wants to start a new and radical life.

 Margret, played by Sydney Sweeney, appears timid at first, but as the film progresses, she adjusts and somehow becomes the backbone of Floreana. She has what it takes to survive and persevere for the sake of her family. I found Sweeney surprisingly good in this role, although I’m not sure about the authenticity of her German accent. Either way, I was able to suspend my disbelief and admire her character for both her strength and necessary ruthlessness.

The third and final group/throple depicted in this film is flamboyantly and gloriously led by Baroness Antonia Wagner von Wehrborn Bosquet, a woman unashamedly selfish, conniving, sexual, and unapologetically evil. Ana de Armas is amazing and very striking in this role.

Based on a true story, accounts tell how these three groups stop at nothing to survive and claim the island as their own. Theft, lies, mental instability, and even a good old-fashioned poisoning enter the picture. They are all unhinged! It’s like Lord of the Flies, but with privileged bohemian German adults instead of schoolboys. And although Eden is too slow-paced at times, it’s still fun to watch.

This is not a nice film about noble everyday people; a trope fans might expect from Ron Howard. It’s a film where people betray each other in the worst ways, even the ones they claim to love. There is no real redemptive arc for any of them, just a winner of terribleness. What Ron Howard does deliver, as expected, is beautiful cinematography and a distinctive visual style.

Eden is worth watching if you are interested in this true-life story. It is available for streaming on Prime.

Chrissy Winters is a writer who lives surrounded by golden wheat fields and swaying soybeans in rural Ontario, Canada.  A graduate of Simon Fraser University’s The Writers Studio, Chrissy is a wife and mother of three and dog mom of two.  She loves creating characters, reviewing books, film and television and is fueled by exercise and coffee. Connect with her on Instagram @chrissyreadsandwrites.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing. Thank you for understanding.