Eden

By Joanna Langfield

It’s a bit exhausting, watching Ron Howard’s look at a group of real life Utopia seekers, who settled in the Galapagos after World War One. Yes, there’s a whole lot going on, but I felt like I had to work almost as hard as they did, not just to follow the story, but to tap into the drive and dynamics only flirted at here.

What could have been a pungent and poignant look at the social and political inspirations and ramifications that get mentioned quickly, gets a much frothier, almost stereotypical treatment. The original settler, a German doctor seeking complete refuge in order to write his manifest for a new world order, is a nasty piece of work. He pounds away at the typewriter, frustrated at his lack of success, expecting his partner to tend to his needs. They are both disturbed when the somewhat normal Wittmer family shows up, and nobody’s happy when a suspicious Baroness lands on the beach, lovers and designers at hand, to help her build, wait for it, a hotel.

I’m pretty much a sucker for stories like these, wondering about people who choose such an existence, and, literally, how they do it. For that, the movie does its job. But good actors are wasted. Jude Law barks his way as Dr. Ritter, Vanessa Kirby doesn’t get to do too much as his abused companion. Ana De Armas’s flourish makes the Baroness alluring until she’s not and an almost unrecognizable Sydney Sweeney, along with Daniel Bruhl, brings a touch of gravity.

Maybe the prolific Howard, who surprised me with his elegant and genuinely touching Rush, is not just the director to bite into the real blood and guts of a story such as this. What he offers is an intriguing introduction, but it’s up to us to do the heavy lifting for this not too pretty a picture.