***SPOILER ALERT***

Ari Aster’s Eddington satirizes the delirium of the COVID pandemic through the framework of a traditional Western. It’s surreal to see such recent history on screen. There is so much to unpack from that time, and Aster tries his best to fit as much as he can into the two-and-a-half-hour film. The film feels like the COVID era felt—a constant bombardment of contradicting information creating the feeling that nothing is actually real. On first watch, what stood out to me were the movie’s ideas about perception and reality.

The movie centers on a mayoral race between Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), an asthmatic, anti-mask sheriff, and incumbent Ted (Pedro Pascal), a tech-friendly proponent of COVID lockdown mandates. Joe and Ted are the distillation of two COVID-era American archetypes. Joe is vehemently against mask mandates despite being at a higher risk of COVID-related health complications. Ted virtue-signals his adherence to the mandates but, in private, does not use his mask and even throws a party for his campaign supporters. Neither of the men spends much time informing their decisions on masks and social distancing. The basis for their beliefs is not rooted in the opinions of experts or a genuine desire to help others; rather, their beliefs are in furtherance of the personas they’ve crafted.

Every moment of our waking lives can be captured and posted online in an instant, a fact that informs nearly every decision of every character in the film. In the beginning of the film, Joe enters a supermarket with no mask despite the state’s mask mandates. Ted happens to be shopping in the store with his mask on and pleads with Joe to put his mask on. This confrontation occurs in a public place, with spectators filming the interaction on their phones. Both men are cognizant of this and make sure to act in a manner that conforms with the way they wish to be perceived by the public.

Shortly after Joe announces his bid for mayor, the men confront each other one-on-one outside the sheriff’s office. Joe records the confrontation on his phone, but this interaction is in a controlled environment outside the purview of the public. During this interaction, Ted does not wear a mask and violates the six-foot rule of social distancing. Joe calls Ted out on this violation, asking him to step back. Without the public to perceive this interaction, both men act in a manner that does not conform to their public image. How these two men act is dependent on who is perceiving them. They exist in two separate worlds—their private, “real” worlds and their online “public” worlds.

The character Brian (Cameron Mann) also exists in two worlds. Brian joins the Black Lives Matter movement to impress a girl. He organizes protests and changes his Instagram handle to craft an online image that he believes Sarah (Amelie Hoeferle) will find attractive. Like Joe and Ted, Brian takes a particular stance on an issue because he wants to be perceived a certain way. It’s not clear he feels strongly about the underlying issue. At the end of the film, he becomes a Kyle Rittenhouse–like figure and completely shifts his online persona, capitalizing on his newfound fame. What Brian believes or feels is unimportant. His “real” life is dictated by how he wishes to be perceived online.

The film uses misinformation and conspiracy to further highlight the disconnect between our perception of the world online and its reality. Joe’s wife, Louise (Emma Stone), becomes enthralled with Vernon (Austin Butler), a cultish anti-pedophilia guru who posts self-help content online. When Joe meets Vernon and hears his story of escaping a nude “child-hunt” put on by “elites” in D.C. (sound familiar?), he does not believe him. Joe is bombarded daily with conspiracy theories on social media and from his mother-in-law, Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), but Vernon never crossed his feed. For Joe, Vernon’s story is outrageous and doesn’t fit with the worldview his algorithm has crafted for him. Even Louise’s mother, who is deeply entrenched in conspiracy, doesn’t buy it. However, for Louise, the story resonates. The film implies that this story resonates with Louise because her own father sexually assaulted her. This personal trauma has primed Louise to believe in the greater conspiracy.

This implied sexual assault also seems to inform Dawn’s worldview. She keeps a shrine of her late husband in the middle of the living room, glorifying him as a great man. The film implies that he was not such a great man, engaging in illicit acts with his own daughter. Dawn appears to be in denial of this reality, pushing a narrative that Ted impregnated Louise. Like Louise, this trauma informs Dawn’s entire worldview. Rather than accepting the truth, she is more comfortable living in an alternate reality involving grand conspiracies and evil actors. For both Louise and Dawn, the internet has provided a reflection of their perception of the world. Both women can avoid reality and craft a reality of their own—a reality that does not challenge their beliefs but confirms them.

In the climax of the film, an ANTIFA-like group of well-organized mercenaries attacks the town. ANTIFA’s arrival blurs the separation between the online world and the real world. Joe often talks about how COVID “isn’t in Eddington,” and the death of George Floyd happened somewhere far away from Eddington. To Joe, these issues only exist in the online world—the citizens of Eddington are simply spectators. The arrival of ANTIFA breaks down this barrier. The videos Joe watched of ANTIFA firing on cops is now his own reality. Once in a blue moon, the bizarre thing you saw online turns out to be true. It’s the 1 in 100 that keeps you guessing about what is true and what is not. The 1 in 100 also has another effect: it justifies those who exist on the fringes of the internet—the theorists who perpetuate toxic rhetoric and misinformation.

Are the ANTIFA soldiers really ANTIFA? Or are they crisis actors sent by the GOP or mercenaries hired by Big Tech? The answer does not matter. Regardless of who sent the masked men, their arrival proves the existence of a greater conspiracy. For people like Joe and Dawn, the arrival of these men justifies everything else they consume online. If ANTIFA is real, it must mean that vaccines contain microchips and COVID is a manmade virus crafted by the Chinese government. For those predisposed to conspiracy, the existence of any fact supporting their theories only serves to further entrench them in their online perception of the world.

Regardless of who sent the masked insurgents, it proves that someone is behind the constant stream of misinformation online. Whoever is sending these masked men wants their assault on the town to be public. The online worlds our characters inhabit are not naturally occurring; rather, they are manufactured. We are simply at the whim of ANTIFA, the GOP, or Big Tech (or all three). Our perception of the world through our online lens is not random but purposely designed.

In the end, it does not matter what each individual character believes—the reality for all of them is the domination of Big Tech. After all the chaos, the AI data center is built in the town like nothing ever happened. Ironically, it is under Joe’s mayoralty that the center is built. It does not matter who is perceived to hold the power—the real powerholders always get what they want. People like Joe, Ted, and Brian were all so busy living in their own online world that they failed to see the reality of their situation. They were blind to the truth. Their experiences in the online world informed their decisions more than the reality of the real world.

Frankly, I don’t know if I’ll ever understand everything Aster was trying to say in this film. In a meta sense, the film is just like scrolling through your Instagram feed. With so much going on, viewers can impart their own reality onto the meaning of the film. The film is intentionally vague to allow the viewer to fill in the blanks based on their view of the world. How you perceive the film reflects your own reality.