This article contains spoilers for Eden.
You take yourself with you wherever you go. For most, this is a lesson learned after taking an impromptu solo trip to Cabo. For a group of European settlers in the 1930s, it was revealed the hard way: after trying to settle on an island in the Galápagos, a venture that was responsible for four missing persons. This true story is the basis of Ron Howard‘s new crime thriller Eden, which stars Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Sydney Sweeney, Ana de Armas, and more.
Howard noted in an interview with TIME that he set out to highlight the parallels between the story, which is set in the aftermath of World War I, and the desperate nature of people now. “This romantic idea that you could be your best self if you could just get away from modern society is something that we share to this day.” So, how accurately does Eden tell the story of those ill-fated settlers, and where does the real story diverge?
What Is ‘Eden’ About?
Following the rise of fascism, Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and his wife, Dore (Vanessa Kirby), flee Germany and begin anew on Floreana, an island off the south of Ecuador. Ritter is determined to use the isolation to write a manifesto about their solitary, anti-bourgeois lifestyle that the couple believes will “save humanity.” However, due to publicity generated by letters that Ritter has written, their paradise is disrupted by the arrival of Heinz and Margret Wittmer (Sydney Sweeney) and their son, Harry. Hopeful that Floreana will offer a more natural lifestyle for Harry, who is recovering from sickness, the Wittmers promise not to disturb the Ritters as they settle into their own civilization. Still, the Wittmers’ and Ritters’ ways of being contradict each other, and they refuse to lend each other help.
Eventually, Floreana beckons the arrival of another party–the “Baroness” Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas) and her two lovers, Robert and Rudolph. The enigmatic Baroness upsets the ecosystem even further by ceaselessly partying and stealing food from her neighbors. One night, she announces her plans to build the world’s most exclusive hotel on the beaches of Floreana, whether the others like it or not. Tensions boil as the three families compete for resources and power on Floreana, eventually coming to a head with the death of four citizens: The Baroness, Robert, Ritter, and Rudolph. As Abbott Kahler, author of the 2024 book Eden Undone, perhaps best put it, “I think the problems start to arise because once you have different versions of utopia all in one place, nobody’s going to be able to achieve their specific utopia.”
The True Story Behind ‘Eden’
Eden may have gotten mediocre reviews, but it seems it at least mostly got the facts right. All of Eden‘s most stark images are based on reality: Margret Wittmer being forced to give birth in a cave with wild dogs, Ritter removing all of his own teeth to live off the grid, and even the Baroness carrying a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray around. However, as is typical with film adaptations of true stories, there is quite a bit of extrapolation and dramatic embellishment. For one, Eden fictionalizes the Baroness’ seduction of Allan Hancock, which never actually happened (though she was famous for flirting with tourists who brought supplies).
Perhaps the biggest “change” is in how Howard decides to answer the unsolved mysteries of Floreana. Historians still do not know what exactly happened to the four people who went missing, but there are theories. Eden creates its own version of events about who was responsible for the confirmed murder of the Baroness and her lover, Robert. In this fictionalized telling, Ritter and Heinz team up to kill them, driven to violence by a need to protect their version of utopia. The leading theory among historians, conversely, is that Rudolph, the Baroness’s other lover, more likely committed a crime of passion. Eden also explicitly suggests that Dore poisoned her husband with spoiled chicken at the suggestion of Margret.
Howard admits that this was entirely a speculative embellishment, but that he did always find it odd that a doctor who had survived off the land for so long would make such a mistake. This seems like an earnest effort by Eden to center the historically patriarchal story around its female characters slightly more. Suggesting that some of the still-unsolved cases of Floreana were acts of female emancipation or empowerment (and yes, murder, but still) adds another layer of modern flair. While it is a quite lackluster telling of the tale that often borders on “so bad it’s good,” the true story behind Eden is so interesting that the movie is worth seeing for that alone.
Eden is now playing in theaters.
Eden
- Release Date
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August 22, 2025
- Runtime
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120 minutes
- Writers
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Noah Pink
- Producers
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Brian Grazer, Karen Lunder, Patrick Newall, Stuart Ford