There is no such thing as a “here problem”. Everything is an everywhere problem. At any point, the worst parts of the internet – which is to say, the worst parts of people – can descend on your town at terrifying speed. To see that environment rendered believably on screen is, ironically, the most thrilling part of it all.

But on this front – the task of handling real events on a real timeline with a real sense of the vanishing boundary between online and off – Eddington is a success. Aster’s film touches so many of the third rails of modern cinema – the internet, screenshots, Zoom, celebrities, political figures, bitcoin, 9/11 – and yet somehow survives.

I can probably count on two hands the films that have captured digital life in a way did not feel inaccurate, didactic or self-important, let alone seamlessly woven it into story – Eighth Grade, Sweat, Tár, Dìdi, Past Lives. I remember them because it’s still so rare; it is difficult to incorporate the mundane minutiae of screen life, tie oneself t... See more