Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal face off in "Eddington." Credit: A24 Comedy is tragedy plus time. There may be a day when critics look back on Ari Aster's COVID-19 comedy Eddington with kinder eyes.

The two face off in Ari Aster's 'Eddington'—a heightened black comedy neo-western that finds them re-living 2020, battling anxiety, and Pascal "smacking the sh*t out of" Phoenix.

Travis Hopsin of Punch Drunk Critics says the fear surrounding the pandemic, Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd protests that’s depicted in Eddington is “designed to enrage us,” but the most terrifying part of Ari Aster’s film is how accurate it is. The critic says: