‘Eden’ Review: Ron Howard’s Historical ‘Thriller’ Strands Us On an Island with Characters Who Grow More Dislikable by the Minute
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic Ron Howard has always taken pride in being an eclectic filmmaker — in the last 40 years, he has made movies about mermaids, cocoons, auto factories, astronauts, firefighters, newspapers, beautiful minds, cave rescuers, the Grinch, the Da Vinci Code, the Beatles, and Pavarotti.
But at the Toronto Film Festival premiere of his latest movie, “Eden,” he declared that the film stands farther apart from his other work than anything he has ever done.
He’s right, though not for the reason he thinks. “Eden,” which is based on events that unfolded 100 years ago on one of the Galápagós Islands, is a difficult movie to characterize.
It’s been labeled as a “thriller,” but I would describe it as a misanthropic survivalist “Robinson Crusoe” meets “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” with deranged footnotes by Friedrich Nietzsche.
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