Eden has a lot going for it. For one thing, the survival thriller has a fun, based-on-a-true-story premise: a European couple in the 1920s escape to a quiet life on an island in the Galápagos archipelago, only for their solitude to be interrupted by unwanted outsiders who are “capable of theft, deception, and worse.” Also, it’s a movie directed by Ron Howard that doesn’t have the words “hillbilly” or “elegy” in the title. That’s a big plus.
But Eden‘s biggest draw is the cast: there’s Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby as the married couple, as well as Ana de Armas, Sydney Sweeney, and Daniel Brühl as the late arrivals. If I was on an island and had to choose between spending time with any of those five or Wilson the volley ball, it would take me half a second to decide. Cast Away? More like get away from me, Wilson.
de Armas plays a character calling herself “The Baroness” who gets escorted around the island by “two devoted lovers” (Felix Kammerer and Toby Wallace). “Having this crazy threesome relationship, and being a woman of opposites — either she’s sweet and tender and fragile and nervous and scared, or she’s absolutely crazy and dangerous,” the John Wick Presents: Ballerina actress told Vanity Fair about her character. “It was kind of finding that limit: What was the craziest I could get? How far could I go?”
She went pretty far:
Several scenes took days to get right, including a spectacularly disastrous dinner gathering. It finds de Armas’s Baroness hosting and holding court, trying to negotiate terms for the way everyone can live in harmony—while slyly asserting her power in the new dynamics. The sequence involves violence, singing, and some creative food play. “That scene was the scariest thing I’ve ever done,” de Armas says. “It was kind of like a chess game. We spent three days shooting that.”
Eden premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7. There’s no theatrical release date yet.
