Eden

The most un-Ron Howard-like film he's ever made, a violent and pessimistic look at humanity's basest instincts as remote island dwellers engage in conflict that turns deadly.

“Eden” has to be the most un-Ron Howard-like film he’s ever made.

The filmmaker known for “A Beautiful Mind” and “Apollo 13” has certainly tackled dark and weighty themes in his long career. But there’s always been an underpinning of hopeful humanism to his movies, a sense that however bad things may turn for a time, the nobility of the soul will triumph.

Ixnay on all that for “Eden.”

It’s a violent, sordid and pessimistic look at humanity's basest instincts as Westerners attempt to settle the remote island of Floreana in the Galápagos chain during the early 1930s. Arriving with very different ideas of why they’re there, their conflict soon rises from deep dislike to outright hostility, with inevitable deadly consequences.

A sharp psychological thriller, it’s an exquisite piece of entertainment while also leaving you with a very depressing outlook about society that’s an apt mirror for our present times. Honestly, it left me emotionally and physically wrung out. It’s Howard’s best film since 2013’s “Rush.”

The screenplay by Noah Pink (Howard gets a co-story credit) is based on real events, as chronicled in competing accounts by “the survivors,” as prologue text informs us. It depicts the attempt by Westerners, largely Germans, to colonize the uninhabited Floreana and how their interactions devolved from unneighborly to downright murderous.

Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby play the first permanent residents, Dr. Friederich Ritter and his partner/companion, Dire Strauch. Ritter was a bitter nihilist and devotee of Friedrich Nietzsche who abandoned his family and medical practice in Berlin to run away with his then-patient, who battles multiple sclerosis. From his perch in Floreana, living just a smidge higher on the technology scale than Tarzan and Jane, he wrote angry screeds in the form of letters back to the mainland, which became a sensation in high society.

Both Ritter and Strauch are deeply misanthropic, believing humans are mean-spirited and worthless. “Failure is inevitable,” Ritter writes. He even yanked out his own infected teeth, donning Vader-like metal dentures for eating. He might have ended up as a Hitler follower had he stayed in Germany, except that would involve accepting that humanity has a future.

Dire — the ultimate femme fatale name! — is sly and manipulative, clearly worshiping Friederich on some level but also quick to be nettlesome with him when she feels he isn’t living up (or is it down?) to his ideals.

Given this, they are not exactly delighted when new dwellers show up. The Wittmers are good-hearted Germans, enthusiastic about the prospect of turning Floreana into a community. Heinz (Daniel Brühl) fought in the war and had a good job as a bureaucrat, but his son, Harry (Jonathan Tittel), contracted tuberculosis and it was decided only the tropical climate could help him.

Heinz’ much-younger wife, Margret (Sydney Sweeney), is the purest of souls who is very put off by the hard-hearted Friederich and Dire. Friederich sets them up at some distant caves near one of the few sources of springwater on the island, a nasty place infected with flies and wild dogs. He predicts (and hopes) they’ll flee after just a season or two.

It’s tough going, but they settle in and even begin to thrive. Margret realizes she’s pregnant with her first child. (Harry is a stepson.)

The island dynamic is strained, but stable. Until, that is, the ostentatious arrival of Baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn, played by Ana de Armas. A bon vivant and egotist supreme — “You are the embodiment of perfection,” she chants to herself —the Baroness has come with the notion of building a grand hotel on Floreana, to be called Hacienda Paradiso.

This, despite the fact she has only brought meager resources along with her, including a trio of handsome young retainers she spends more time shtupping than any kind of land development. They include Rudy (Felix Kammerer), a weakling architect, and Robert (Toby Wallace), her strapping bodyguard.

It soon becomes clear to all the haughty Baroness will not survive on her own. She moves her camp next door to the Wittmer’s, freely consuming their precious water and, when needed, brazenly stealing their supplies. Then she’ll invite them to a luncheon where she serves their own food back to them. All while having loud open-air sex with her current favorite boy while Heinz and Margret toil.

Thus ensues a contest of wills between the three camps, with the lines of loyalty constantly shifting. Baroness tries to pit Friederich/Dire against the Wittmers, who recognize the attempt while not quite able to overcome their own mutual dislike enough to form a meaningful alliance.

I’m not giving anything away to say things will eventually get shoot-y and stab-y.

The lead actors do a wonderful job of inhabiting their characters in such a way that we believe these people could actually exist in the world and act the way they do, even the over-the-top Friederich and crafty Baroness. They’re both very charismatic in a quite despicable way, like they’re competing to see who is the true villain of the piece.

Sweeney’s Margret more or less acts as the main viewpoint character, and comes to realize the frailty and venality inside each of them, including Heinz. Harry is completely besmirched by the Baroness, which becomes another string in her web to pull on.

Less pliable is Allan Hancock (Richard Roxburgh), a Hollywood bigshot and benefactor who comes to check on the progress of the island, and quickly clocks the true nature of each camp — in particular, disarming the Baroness of her sexual manipulation.

“Eden” is very sensuous and fleshy — you can practically smell the ripeness of the skin on fervent display. Howard’s movies don’t generally feature nudity or sex, and it’s almost like he’s trying to bring up his lifetime average in one go.

Sweeney and de Armas are the standouts of the movie, offering competing visions of feminine response to increasingly dire circumstances. You can’t take your eyes off the Baroness — that’s her power — but Margret has a quiet, stubborn way of bending people and events her way.

“Eden” is a dark, dark movie. If you’d made me watch it without credits and tasked me with guessing the director, I wouldn’t have gotten Ron Howard even with 50 tries. It’s like Dr. Seuss moonlighting with Stephen King novels.

But he proves a quick study at the cinema of a baleful, almost hopeless view of humanity. I sense a lot of people are sharing this vibe these days, and will find themselves closely attuned with its pitch-black energy. Rarely has a movie been so good at making me feel so bad.

(A note: “Eden” hits theaters Aug. 22. Select critics were offered a chance to see “Eden” early, including me. Usually I prefer to run reviews shortly before the movie comes out — there’s no such thing as a “scoop” when it comes to giving your own opinion about a film.)