Ron Howard has brought films such as “A Beautiful Mind” and “Apollo 13” box office hit. Now in “Eden” he tells the true story of a group of dropouts in the 1930s. Despite the star bracket, the survival thriller does not really want to ignite.
Ron Howard’s big cinema sequence is a while ago. Among other things, “Apollo 13”, “A Beautiful Mind” and “The Da Vinci Code – sacrileg” would be mentioned. With “Thirteen Life”, a drama of the director was already in the cinema in 2022, which is based on a real event, namely that of a youth football team buried in Thailand. His Netflix strip “Hillbilly-Elegie” from 2020 deals with the family history of JD Vance before he became a Trump supporter and his vice. Now the now 71-year-old Howard has used reality for the survival thriller “Eden” and adopted it.
100 years ago, the world situation is similarly tense as it is today. Economically, it goes downhill in many places, but for the Nazis, on the other hand, it goes uphill in Germany. Reason enough to try out and his happiness far away from home. For example on the Galapágos Islands. In 1929 the Berlin dentist and philosophy fan Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jew Law) and his beloved Dore Strauss (Vanessa Kirby) suffered from MS. And while you have been enjoying the calm of the little Eiland Floreana for a while, travel of newspaper articles over the two inspired the next dropouts in 1932: World War II veteran Heinz Wittmar from Cologne (Daniel Brühl) including his wife Margret (Sydney Sweeney) and the son together.
Fight with nature and against the co-insulans
As is common in the case of towns, they have to struggle with nature. Wind, weather, animal, field and cave, nothing is like in Cologne and everything has to be conquered first. But the Wittmers gradually grooves and sometimes even outdo their predecessors when it comes to supply skills. Everything runs somewhat relaxed until the next intruders claim the island for themselves.
The self-proclaimed baroness Eloise Wehrborn de Wagner-Bosquet (Ana de Armas) and her two lovers Rudolf (Felix Kammerer) and Robert (Toby Wallace) come to Floreana with a lot of tamtam. In the hand luggage, the plan to build a luxury hotel for well -heeled. However, the less noble high -stapler tends to spin intrigue and play out against each other instead of seriously taking care of the planned business. Of course, this does not go well for long, and in the end some of those present have disappeared dead and others disappeared without a trace. From Eden, a lost paradise quickly becomes a lost paradise in which there is only losers. Almost only losers, because Margret will be the only one to live a satisfied life on Floreana until old age.
Before someone gets upset about this spoiler … As mentioned, “Eden” is a truth in some aspects of screenwriter Noah Pink by fiction, history that can often be read on the Internet, looked at it in documentary or heard in podcasts.
Howard financed the film itself
It was a good 25 years since Ron Howard heard from all of this for the first time. Since then, the idea of making a film out of it has not let him go. The fact that it took so long and in the end he had to pay for all costs was mainly due to the fact that the big Hollywood studios did not recognize the potential of the story. However, this may even rightly even if you look at this film.
Although highly decorated and popular stars from Jude Law run to Daniel Brühl to Ana de Armas and Vanessa Kirby, partly lightly dressed or even naked through wonderful landscapes, and yet the spark does not really want to skip. After seasons, Ron Howard divided the film into something like chapter to tell through the changed nature. Unfortunately, the viewer learns far too little about the background of the individual figures. Their motivations of withdrawing to loneliness appear and are only partially understandable. None and none of them grow so heart as a spectator.
Americans mime Germans
The baroness and her lovers arrive on Floreana.
(Photo: Imago/Landmark Media)
So it doesn’t matter if you start, through the intrigues spun from the baroness, at first verbally, but soon also physically go to the throat. What also plays in the bad cards of the absurdity of some situation are the German accents of everyone involved. The emigrants were German or Austrian citizens, but the Cast himself has to offer only Americans in addition to Brühl and Kammerer. Let’s see from Hans Zimmer as a composer of the soundtrack and Mathias Herndl as a cameraman at this point. And despite their name and their skills, all stars only manage to give their respective figure beyond the scissors -like profile.
This means that “Eden” is pretty to look at and the actors always deliver, but the drama remains behind his possibilities. However, if the true story is interested, the documentary “The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came To Eden” published in 2013 provides deeper insights into the events – with original pictures, because there are surprisingly large amount of archive material from that time.
“Eden” will run in German cinemas from April 4th.
