We’ve all, at some point or another, fantasized about leaving it all behind and making a new life on a deserted island somewhere, far from all the stresses and sicknesses of so-called civilized life. A rare few, however, have actually attempted it, and among the most notable of these were Friedrich Ritter and his lover Dora Strauch, Germans who fled an increasingly dysfunctional Germany in 1929 to settle on Floreana, a theretofore uninhabited island in the Galapagos archipelago. There they managed to carve a subsistence-level existence, and Friedrich’s letters back home made them celebrities of a sort. A few years later, another German family, Heinz and Margret Wittmer and their teenaged son, arrived on the island, followed shortly thereafter by a flamboyant woman named Eloise who called herself a baroness and, two boytoys in tow, announced her plans to build a grand hotel on Floreana. After 1934, half of these people would never be seen alive again.

These are the historical facts upon which Ron Howard’s new film Eden is based, and they are remarkable enough on their face. (The story was also told in an engrossing 2013 documentary, The Galapagos Affair.) The Oscar-winning director has recruited a star-studded cast for this offbeat tale of an island paradise that becomes anything but: Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby (her third film to hit theaters in the last month) as Ritter and Strauch, Ana de Armas as the Baroness, and Daniel Brühl and Sydney Sweeney as the Wittmers. With a story this outrageous, screenwriter Noah Pink (Tetris) doesn’t need to make many alterations or elaborations to create a compelling narrative with memorable personalities, although it’s a shame he eliminated a native Ecuadorean guide who accompanied the Baroness, since that character could have provided a nice counterpoint to all of these naïve, utopian Europeans.

Ritter, as the linchpin to the whole enterprise, is a classic German obsessive. To avoid any dental problems on the island, the former physician removed his teeth before moving to Floreana and uses a set of steel dentures to eat with. He also spends all his free time pecking away on a typewriter, attempting to compose a text that would usher humanity into a new age. (It would be, Strauch says, a mere book in the same way that the Bible is a mere book.) In other words, it’s a great role for Law in his dissolute, sweaty mode (see The Order and Firebrand), and Kirby matches him beat-for-beat as a former patient and current devotee who has a special relationship with their burro. The Wittmers, on the other hand, are salt-of-the-earth settlers, earnest and humble, who, despite being welcomed icily by their predecessors, stick around long enough at least to give birth to the first human even known to have been born on Floreana.

Things probably would have been copacetic but for the arrival of The Baroness, whose mantra is “I am the embodiment of perfection!” and who foregrounds the sexual liberation that the unmarried Ritter and Strauch take for granted. Then again, if she hadn’t been the snake in this particular garden, something or someone else surely would have been. The three women give the most layered performances in Eden, and it’s particularly notable to see Sweeney in a role that’s anything but a busty sexpot (her only nudity in the film is a breast-feeding scene). Denim distractions and family politics aside, between this and last year’s Immaculate, she’s shown she can deliver decent dramatic work when she’s not being exploited in garbage like Anyone but You.

These A-listers are all capable actors, providing depth to potential caricatures, and they carry Eden on their backs. The movie’s a curious choice for Howard, though, whose workmanlike style is too literal for such a potentially operatic tale. Give Werner Herzog this material and stand back. You don’t have to have grown up watching Gilligan’s Island to know that a small group stuck together in an isolated tropical paradise is going to end up in conflict sooner or later. And when it comes, it’s the fulfillment of a narrative that feels almost too metaphorical to be true, even if much of it was. Or not, depending on which of the survivors you believe. (Regal Fox Tower, Clackamas Town Center, Bridgeport Village)

Also reviewed

Hanabi Festival: The Clinton Street Theater’s celebration of Japanese cinema continues for a second week with an impressive seven screenings from a diverse array of genres. The most recent is director Kazuya Shiraishi’s Bushido (Friday 8/22), scheduled for release in the upcoming months by Film Movement. It’s a samurai film, but not an action-oriented one. A vagrant samurai named Yanagida lives a pecuniary life with his adult daughter in a small village, his only solace the game of Go at which he excels. When the truth behind the scandal that cost him his imperial post emerges, he embarks on a quest for revenge that relies on board games as much as blades. The goofiest is 1964’s Black Tight Killers (Sunday 8/24), a delightful relic that prefigures Pop Art pieces such as Danger: Diabolik and In Like Flint. A combat photographer recently returned from Southeast Asia befriends a flight attendant and, after she’s kidnapped, finds himself up against a quartet of female assassins who use ancient ninja tricks like spitting bubble gum in their foe’s eyes. The weirdest is probably Dogra Magra (Sunday 8/24), the 1988 final film from director Toshio Matsumoto (Funeral Parade of Roses) that only received a proper US release last year. In it, a man wakes up in an insane asylum with no idea how he got there. A pair of doctors works to help him recover his memory, during which process the present and past, reality and memory merge and swirl in a hallucinatory way that recalls The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or Shutter Island, but with a uniquely unsettling vibe. (Clinton Street Theater)

Night of the Juggler: The 1970s and ’80s saw a raft of gritty, NYC-set crime thrillers, and it’s not clear that this 1980 effort is all that noteworthy. Nonetheless, it’s been newly restored by Kino Lorber and re-released, and it does offer some grimy pleasures in its depiction of a Big Apple overrun by chaos and sleaze. James Brolin, looking like he’s trying out for a Serpico sequel, plays an ex-cop whose ex-wife wants to move their daughter to Connecticut with her. Can you imagine? Connecticut? Where’s the poor child going to find a decent hot dog stand there? In any case, that debate gets put on hold when she’s kidnapped, apparently randomly, from Central Park in broad daylight by a disgruntled property owner (Cliff Gorman) upset at the influx of ethnic minorities into his neighborhood. (Content warning: he, and many others in the film, do not use the term “ethnic minorities.” They use other words that are rarely thrown about with such abandon in American films today.) In fact, the kidnapper grabbed the wrong girl, intending to nab the daughter of a rich developer. Where else have we seen that plot twist recently? Nevertheless, Brolin’s on the case, which puts him in the crosshairs of the dirty cop (Dan Hedaya) responsible for his ouster from the force and on a cross-metropolis chase. Mandy Patinkin has an amusing but cringey cameo as an ethnic cabbie. (Tuesday 8/26, Hollywood Theatre)

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Relay: The high concept in this twisty but forgettable thriller hinges on the fact (unconfirmed by your correspondent) that communication via talk-to-text or other services designed for use by the hearing or speech impaired is inherently confidential and secure. Ash (Riz Ahmed) works as a middleman between corporate whistleblowers and their blowees. His latest case involves Sarah (a very good Lily James), who threatened to expose the hidden dangers of her biotech employer’s new product but has decided to come in from the cold. When things inevitably go cockeyed, he ends up trying to protect her from the malefactors of great wealth without blowing his own carefully cultivated cover. Ash has traits signaling complexity—he’s an alcoholic Muslim—but the film is too concerned with tradecraft and set pieces to let Ahmed run with the role. That’s not a bad thing: Relay, directed by Australian David McKenzie (Hell or High Water), never bores. But, like its protagonist, it vanishes into the crowd all too easily. (Eastport Plaza, Regal Fox Tower, Bridgeport Village)

Lilly Lives Alone: The feature debut of Portland director Martin Melnick is an impressively modulated psychological thriller about the titular Lilly (Shannon Beeby), who, yes, lives alone in a shadowy bungalow and struggles to get to work on time at the nearby Red Apple. On what turns out to be the tenth anniversary of her daughter’s death, Lilly spirals into a paranoid frenzy, hallucinating little arms reaching out from under her bed and strange noises behind the closet door she always keeps locked. Or is she? Horror legend Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator) has a nice supporting role as Lilly’s neighbor. Shot in and around Portland, it’s only receiving a theatrical release in three cities, but Melnick’s hometown is one of them. He’ll be in attendance for a post-film Q&A at the Friday show. (Friday 8/22 & Sunday 8/24, Cinemagic)

Trust: We haven’t seen much from Sophie Turner since she was forced to stop playing Sansa Stark on Game of Thrones. She had the misfortune to appear as Jean Grey in one of the worst X-Men films, and apparently had a supporting role in the well-regarded 2022 true-crime miniseries The Staircase. Judging from her wan work in this inept thriller about a goody-two-shoes sitcom star (Turner) whose hacked photos reveal she’s pregnant, her luck has yet to turn. Escaping from the media frenzy to a secluded house, she’s then stalked by a menacing fan and some thugs hired by the baby’s father, her older, married costar. Plus, she beats a rat to death with a lead pipe and, of course, gets doused with water in her skivvies. Bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. (Eastport Plaza, Bridgeport Village)

Also this week

Kerouac’s Road: The Beat of a Nation: This documentary “explores [Jack] Kerouac’s On the Road through today’s lens, as celebrities and travelers reflect on authentic experiences in our digital age, echoing the novel’s timeless search for genuine connection.” (Salem Cinema, 8/22 through 8/28)

The Films of Keita Amemiya: He’s no household name, but Amemiya has been behind several Japanese science fiction cult favorites, generally in the tokusatsu genre, that feature crude but lovable practical special effects and a live-action anime vibe. This four-day tribute features some of his earliest efforts, including 1991’s Zeiram, about a pair of alien bounty hunters who come to Earth in pursuit of a dangerous killer, and its sequel, Zeiram 2. Two entries in the Kamen Rider series will also be screened, as will the memorably titled Mechanical Violator Hakaider, from 1995. Each film will be introduced by Chris Henager of Animayhem PDX. (Monday 8/25 through Thursday 8/28, Cinemagic)

Peasants of the Second Fortress: When the Japanese government announced plans to construct what’s now Narita Airport outside Tokyo, a vast popular movement composed of left-wing activists, farmers, and other locals came together to oppose the project, which was undertaken without their input and would displace many thousands of villagers. This became known as the Sanrizuka Struggle, and it was chronicled over a span of years by Shinsuke Ogawa, one of the nation’s top documentarians, and his production company. One result was this 1971 epic portrait of a heroic resistance that included the creation of huge earthworks to prevent construction, one that continues today, decades after the airport was eventually built. (Wednesday 8/27, Clinton St. Theater)

Pickles! Pickles! Pickles!: The Portland Pickles (barely) failed to complete their quest for back-to-back West Coast League championships earlier this month, so this screening of the hour-long documentary chronicling their magical 2024 season could serve as a healing balm. Look sharp for a cameo by yours truly. Dillon T. Pickle (the T stands for “the”) will reportedly be in attendance, but is unlikely to participate in a Q&A since he doesn’t speak. (Sunday 8/24, Tomorrow Theater)

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Also opening

Honey Don’t: “A dark comedy about Honey O’Donahue (Margaret Qualley), a small-town private investigator, who delves into a series of strange deaths tied to a mysterious church.” Chris Evans, Aubrey Plaza, and Charlie Day costar in Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke’s follow-up to the underwhelming Drive-Away Dolls. (wide release)

Ne Zha II: “After a great catastrophe, the souls of Nezha and Ao Bing are saved, but their bodies face ruin. To give them new life, Taiyi Zhenren turns to the mystical seven-colored lotus in a daring bid to rebuild them and change their fate.” This Chinese animated epic is the highest-grossing film of 2025, netting over $2 billion, and now comes to the U.S. courtesy of A24. (wide release)

Repertory

Friday 8/22

• 12 Monkeys [1995] (Hollywood Theatre, on 35mm, also 8/23)
• The 40-Year-Old Virgin [2005] (Bridgeport Village; through 8/28)
• Brick [2006] (Cinema 21, also 8/23)
• Cool Hand Luke [1967] (Academy Theater, through 8/28)
• Drop Dead Gorgeous [1999] (Tomorrow Theater)
• Girl, Interrupted [1999] (Tomorrow Theater)
• Se7en [1995] (Academy Theater, through 8/28)
• Silvia Prieto [1999] (5th Avenue Cinemas, through 8/24)
• Trainwreck [2015] (Bridgeport Village; through 8/27)
• The Warriors [1979] (Academy Theater, through 8/28)

Saturday 8/23

• Danger: Diabolik [1968] (Cinemagic)
• Downton Abbey [2019] (Salem Cinema, also 8/25)
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High [1982] (Cinemagic, through 8/28)
• Stand by Me [1986] (Salem Cinema, also 8/27)
• There Will Be Blood [2007] (Hollywood Theatre, on 35mm)
• WALL-E [2008] (Cinemagic, through 8/27)
• The Wanderers [1979] (Cinema 21)

Sunday 8/24

• Clue [1985] (Eastport Plaza, Cedar Hills, Clackamas Town Center; through 8/26)
• Downton Abbey: A New Era [2022] (Salem Cinema, also 8/26)
• First Reformed [2017] (Hollywood Theatre)
• RRR [2022] (Hollywood Theatre)
• This Is Spinal Tap [1984] (Tomorrow Theater)

Monday 8/25

• Purple Rain [1984] (Hollywood Theatre, on 35mm)

Wednesday 8/27

• Raiders of the Lost Ark [1982] (Hollywood Theatre, on 35mm)

Thursday 8/28

• Office Space [1999] (Tomorrow Theater)