Fascism is on the rise in Germany in the late 1920s, forcing Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and his wife, Dore Strauch (Vanessa Kirby), to flee their homeland and settle on the isle of Floreana in the Galápagos Islands.  With his excursion turned into a media spectacle, soon Margret (Sydney Sweeney) and Heinz Wittmer (Daniel Brühl), with their young son, Harry (Jonathan Tittel), in tow, emigrate to the island seeking reprieve from the oppressive government control that still infects Germany.  While Ritter is none too pleased to have neighbors, with the later arrival of baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas), her two lovers Robert (Toby Wallace) and Rudolph (Felix Kammerer), and her servant, Manuel (Ignacio Gasparini) arrive on the island with plans to convert the wildland into a resort for the wealthy, the two families of settlers unite over a common enemy seeking to destroy their paradise. 

Ron Howard directs Eden, a so strange it must be true story penned by Noah Pink with both credited for breaking this story.  The film premiered at the 2024 edition of the Toronto International Film Festival, but went without distribution for almost a year until it finally hit cinema screens, courtesy of Vertical, in the doldrums of summer.  Running 129 minutes, the film takes on the airs of a lofty murder mystery, but swaps the allure of an English estate, an oriental train, or a Mediterranean charter for an untamed island in the South Pacific. 

Evolving into a true ensemble piece, albeit a small one, in the beginning of the film we identify most readily with the Wittmers as the newcomers to the island and we forge our sympathy with them given the brash behavior of Ritter who sets them on an unfertile parcel of land a little way beyond his own homestead.  The men of the families could not be more opposite, and for about the first third of the film’s runtime, it is a sparring match between the two while their wives prove to be the ones keeping their lives in order.  Nevertheless, the sparring between the families is engaging, even if it remains somewhat surface level and not as nuanced as we would like to see.  Both Kirby and Sweeney are reduced to rather simple roles in the opening gambits, and to make matters worse Law and Brühl are mostly written to be simple opposites of each other.  It makes for loose and meandering tension, especially given that the interest of the film is not the breaking and taming of the land, but the simmering tension between the reluctant neighbors. 

It is not until the arrival of Eloise and her contingent that Eden begins to truly take shape as she fills the role of a mutual nemesis to the established families.  There is a flash of tribalism at play in this real-life, adult set “Lord of the Flies,” as the settlers try to adjust their lives with a trickster and temptress on their doorstep looking to modernize and privatize the island into a resort destination for the wealthy and influential.  De Armas delivers a performance that is equal parts beguiling and insufferable; a compliment given the nature of the role.  Her tendrils will go on to ensnare everyone on the island, and while her orchestration of the theft of food while Margaret gives birth whilst hounded by wild dogs is perhaps the most vicious example, Eloise is most comfortable wielding her sexuality as a weapon.  Beyond the ménage à trois that introduces us to her character as she frolics with her dual suitors in the shallows, she sets her eyes most nefariously on young Harry to begin bringing the Wittmers onto her side.  The film thankfully never crosses the line from dramatic insinuation and suggestion, but she casts her spell on this young boy similar to how Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) is enchanted by a young witch (Sarah Stephens) in Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015) showing that nature will always come out on top no matter how sly and elusive we humans think we are.  Over a feast of stolen food, she becomes most brazen in her antics and while the men on the island are more or less to resigned to let it slide and deal with the general annoyance of her added presence, the women see right through her charade.  It is not until much later in the film when Eloise again hosts a lavish soirée, this time with American documentarian Allan Hancock (Richard Roxburgh) as the guest of honor that her facade suffers the first major and unmendable crack, and from that rift, her conniving evil is loosed upon the island in search of a new, willing vessel. 

The final act of Eden is nothing short of head spinning as egos erupt and emotional fevers refuse to break.  It is here that the film is at its most overwhelming as allegiances change on a dime and characters come dangerously close to abandoning their principles without enough narrative time spent for us to accept this drastic change in persona.  Had this not been such a simmering affair, the ending would seem like an absconding of the rules which Howard and Pink had laid out for the story, but with each transgression, the film provides ample evidence to support these breaks which creates a real sense of danger.  In the same way Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden scarred by sin, so too will none of these characters be spared from the mark of evil.  For us in the auditorium, however, a wave of unhappy catharsis crashes over us like waves in a storm, and while the story is far from a pleasant one, it is salaciously satisfying. 

Eden is at once a work that makes total sense withing the confines of Howard’s almost five-decades long filmography, and yet one that is totally surprising, too.  Working with Mathias Herndl behind the camera, Matt Villa in the editing suite, and Hans Zimmer at the conductor’s pulpit, the film is classically handsome creating a great environment for the solid ensemble – here, assembled by Nikki Barrett – to slowly devolve into their animal natures.  In another time, this would have been heralded as a major disaster thriller by one of the most commercially and artistically interesting directors working, but in 2025 it was a screen filler in the late summer at less than 700 locations nationwide.  That being said, Howard, never discouraged during production, is still working with the same fierce sincerity that he has forged across his career and delivers an invigorating drama with all the twists, turns, and backstabbing found in empty calorie reality television; it is just a shame that this title will not have that same penetration, but it is an easy-to-recommend and worthwhile title for anyone looking for something slightly challenging that pays off tenfold.