‘Eddington’ Captures the Chaos of the COVID Era

“Your Being Manipulated!” a partisan bumper sticker reads in Eddington. The hapless misuse of a possessive adjective suggests that the candidate being advertised in red, white, and blue—one Joe Cross (Joaquin Phoenix), a political neophyte with designs on the mayorship of Eddington, New Mexico, circa summer 2020—isn’t necessarily the smartest guy in the room, or maybe that his ad hoc staffers aren’t seasoned political operators. Not that it really matters: Joe’s the town sheriff, not the grammar police. And besides, the spelling error might appeal to those who’d prefer not to be corrected in the first place.