If there’s one human activity that Ron Howard has pretty much steered clear of in the many films he’s directed, it’s sex for its own sake — the raw, hungry, illicit, tawdry, provocative kind. But he’s finally gone there with Eden (Vertical, 8.22), the opening of which which has been delayed forever but is finally happening in late August.
Based on a true story that unfolded on the remote island of Floreana, one of the Galapagos Islands, in the early to mid 1930s, the costars are Jude Law (as Dr. Friedrich Ritter), Vanessa Kirby (as Law’s wife, Dora Strauch Ritter), Daniel Brühl and Sydney Sweeney as Harry and Margaret Wittmer, and Ana de Armas as the sexual villain of the piece, Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn.
Don’t kid yourself: The Galapagos island of Floreana, where the turbulent real-life story unfolded 95 years ago, is no tropical paradise. And it’s widely presumed that Dr. Friedrich Ritter, the brusque German misanthrope (Jude Law), was so incensed by the flamboyant vulgarity of Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas) that getting rid of her became an obsession.
From Owen Gleiberman ‘s 9.8.24 review:
