Jude Law, Sidney Sweeney in Ron Howard survival photos

Having directed more than two dozen genre films over six decades, it’s entirely understandable that Ron Howard would want to shake things up by jumping into something outside of his proven comfort zone.

It is also logical that the vehicle that would take him there would be the bizarre yet true account of a 1920s German philosopher who founded with his lover/disciple on a remote island in the Galapagos An experimental association that turned out to have everything collapsed when the opportunists arrived and undermined the party.

While the concept and a game hold all sorts of interesting possibilities, including Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Brühl, and Sidney Sweeney An international cast including Garden of Edenhad its world premiere in Toronto but never found its happy place. The generally overwrought tone feels more cartoonish than satirical, and the lengthy running time highlights the film’s flaws.

The beginning of the film is certainly promising, effectively establishing the life and times of Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Law). In 1929, he escapes German society and its bourgeois values ​​and establishes a new home on the remote island of Floriana, surviving on limited resources with his survivalist partner Dole Strauch (Kirby). Natural resources life.

But the couple’s lonely life is interrupted by the arrival of Heinz Witmer (Brühl), a World War I veteran who brings with him his young newlywed wife Margaret (Brühl). Sweeney) and a son Harry (Jonathan Tittle). They had been keeping tabs on Ritter, hoping that the land’s pristine air would cure Harry’s tuberculosis, just as it seemed to control Strauch’s multiple sclerosis.

Ritter and Strauch were not feeling very hospitable, glaring at the novices with their hunting shorts and butterfly nets, figuring they would have to wait until the first rain to make it.

However, despite the amazing resilience of the family in building a home for themselves and their upcoming newborn, their coexistence is hampered by Baroness Héloïse Bosque de Wagner Weyhorn. Armas) arrives, accompanied by a pocket harem of a group of young men who plan to build the world’s most exclusive resort on rocky terrain.

It soon became apparent that the unrecognizable Baroness, who wore a long string of pearls and spoke with an accent that resembled that of Anna Delvey, was a scheming demagogue. She begins pitting the residents against each other, leading to their inevitable descent into madness.

Although an inspired setting may suggest Werner Herzog’s Gilligan’s IslandHoward and screenwriter Noah Pink (Tetris) vehicle wrecks shot in Queensland in a mixed style. The film is neither a satire nor a thriller nor a murder mystery, and it desperately needs a sharper attack.

This kind of story lends itself well to someone like Mike White, who behaves in an extremely cunning manner. white lotus Sensibility will be at home here. Although Howard provides some effective set pieces, particularly the harrowing sequence in which Margaret must give birth to her own child, there is little about Garden of Eden It feels consistent.

As a result, the performances are equally hit or miss. De Armas does her best in the femme fatale role, although she ultimately lacks the sarcastic skills of a seasoned character actress to really hit home.

Meanwhile, Law (who dominates another TIFF piece, order) becomes so annoying that, like the smug, dogmatic Dr. Ritter, you can’t blame him for wanting to run away when he finally loses his mind.

Only Sweeney succeeds in retaining the audience’s sympathy and keeping her character’s sanity as a pillar of stability, namely Margaret – who, as the end credits and archival footage reveal, will remain. The island, until her death in 2000, where her descendants also receive visitors.

Now this premise sounds more like something out of Howard’s wheelhouse.