Eden is a 2019 drama about the day in the life of a homeless man.
For some of us, when we leave our home to go to work, there might be a man or woman standing outside the office building begging for change. Some give something they have in their pockets while others choose to ignore them.
Writer and director Robbie Walsh wants you instead to spend the day with one of them in his new film Eden. So we first meet Adam (Johnny Elliott) as he wakes up underneath a playground bridge in Dublin, homeless after losing his home in the Irish financial crises in 2008. We join Adam as he spends the next 24 hours going from one individual to the next, just tries to survive another day.
The structure of Eden reminds me of Richard Linklater‘s debut movie Slacker. In that movie we don’t follow just one person but a series of different people and their interactions with others. Adam does encounter many different individuals, ranging from those who mock him to those who want to help him. However, despite the potential, many of his conversations with others were not that interesting or engaging.
I understand that it must be tough to be homeless and that it is a sad life for many. But I have had conversations with people who had incredible stories to tell about their own experiences. They had happiness and joy in those talks despite the fact they had nothing. Now that’s not to say that I wanted Eden to be uplifting or humorous. I just wanted something more than the usual clichés we often see when dealing with this issue. I wanted each of Adam’s interactions to have me think about things in different ways and maybe even teach me a few things. All I learned is that while it may be incredibly trying to be homeless, sometimes you get mocked by a guy with his girlfriend and other times a cute girl will buy you coffee and ask to see you again.
This is the 2nd feature from director Robbie Walsh who previously gave us the mockumentary Split. While the camerawork in that one helped explain that it was a documentary crew shooting it, I found many of the handheld shots in Eden to be kind of distracting and took me out of the movie. Now that’s not to say I wanted some Terrence Malick-type visuals, only that I the imagery were a little bit more steady than what they were.
At only an hour and eleven minutes, Eden is certainly a good movie about the issue of homelessness and Elliott did a good job in that role. It’s I doubt most will learn anything new.