Ron Howard, known for his polished, Oscar-bait films like A Beautiful Mind and Apollo 13, or crowd-pleasing blockbusters like The Grinch and The Da Vinci Code, has never been a filmmaker associated with exploring deep, grim, psychological darkness. His All-American “nice guy” persona makes him an unlikely candidate for a nasty, violent tale of survival and moral collapse. Yet, with Eden, a 1930s-set survival thriller based on a true story, Howard takes a stab at it. For a brief moment, he seems capable of pulling it off—until the film starts sinking under its own weight.
Eden, which had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival, was inspired by a story Howard came across while vacationing in the Galapagos Islands. He enlisted screenwriter Noah Pink (known for his work on Tetris) to adapt the true events surrounding German doctor Friedrich Ritter (played by Jude Law) and his wife Dore Strauch (Vanessa Kirby), who moved to the uninhabited island of Floreana to create their own utopian lifestyle, shunning religion and societal norms. Their solitude is soon interrupted by another German couple (Daniel Brühl and Sydney Sweeney) and their ailing son, hoping that the island’s environment might cure him of tuberculosis.
Things escalate when the eccentric Baroness Eloise (Ana de Armas) arrives with grand plans of building a luxury hotel on the island. What starts as an intriguing, Agatha Christie-style character study quickly devolves into something more chaotic and less engaging, thanks to a miscalculated shift in tone.
The early tension—driven by competing visions of life on Floreana—is palpable and fun to watch. Ritter and Strauch find twisted pleasure in the misery of their island companions, embracing Nietzschean philosophies that make them loath to love their neighbors. But the film takes a nosedive when the Baroness enters the fray. De Armas’s performance, though energetic, feels out of place, more akin to a Disney villain than the nuanced antagonist the story requires. Her character’s actions are so over-the-top that the suspense becomes laughable.
The writing doesn’t help either, as Pink gives de Armas clunky dialogue that aims for the dramatic but lands flat. Vanessa Kirby, a standout talent, is criminally underused, and the film’s darker, gnarlier elements are drowned in predictability.
Despite a fully committed performance from Jude Law—who’s fully nude and toothless at points—the film can’t overcome its repetitive plot twists and convoluted finale. While Howard ventures further into visceral territory than expected (with wince-worthy moments involving a placenta, an infected tooth, and some brutal stabbings), the film’s overly dramatic and hokey script leaves viewers disconnected.
Ultimately, Eden proves that Howard, while admirably bold in stepping outside his comfort zone, was perhaps the wrong filmmaker to helm such a disturbing and violent story. By the time the film ends with a fascinating yet too-late coda explaining the fate of the survivors, it’s clear the journey has lost its way. What could have been a gripping exploration of human darkness feels more like a misguided experiment.