This is Eden

Florence Pugh’s new Netflix limited series East of Eden grabbed 4 million views in 4 days shooting it to the top of the Netflix charts and getting positive reviews from both audiences and critics. This makes it possibly the most popular thing to be exported from Ōamaru.

Based on the 1952 novel by John Steinbeck, East of Eden is considered by many, including the author himself, as his magnum opus. Steinbeck went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. The story was originally addressed to his two sons, for whom he wanted to describe the Salinas Valley in California where his ancestors lived between the Civil War and World War I when the story is set. It’s a family drama exploring the multigenerational saga of the Trask family, focusing new attention on its indelible antihero, Cathy Ames, played by Pugh.

“One of the things I’ve taken pride in is being able to give unlikable characters another chance,” she tells Netflix. “It gives me an opportunity to try and understand these characters, understand their decision-making, have empathy for them, and try and allow for their story to be bigger than just the fact that they made evil decisions at some point in their lifetime.”

We could probably start a whole conversation about modern writing yet again indulging itself in villain revisionism but let’s move right along.

The best-known adaptation is the 1955 film starring James Dean and directed by Elia Kazan. His granddaughter, actor, writer and director Zoe Kazan, has picked it up again for Netflix, rethinking the characters in the process. It appears that East of Eden is always destined to be about family legacy, both in and outside the narrative.

“The whole book was really meaningful for me – the intergenerational story, the questions of legacy and what gets handed down and what are you carrying?” Kazan says. “How do we reconcile ourselves with our shadow selves?”

Filming took place on location in Ōamaru over summer 2024/25, and locked down the heritage precinct for a week, and part of Dunedin for a day. Extras walking the street in the background are all locals. The prairie home they live in is supposed to be as American apple pie as you can get but really it’s sitting in the middle of a field in Otago. Who needs Southern California or Colorado when you have gorgeous Otago to hang out in? More filming was done in Auckland’s Alberton heritage site in a large manor house. So why film in New Zealand? Apart from the nice rebates, “The actual Salinas Valley doesn’t look the way that it did anymore,” says Kazan.

A Pugh Era

We are deep into the Florence Pugh era. The actor had been kicking around for a few years prior, headlining films early on, but she sledgehammered into public consciousness for good with her breakout performance in Midsommar in 2019 and has been at the top of her game ever since.

Her latest role saw her knocking around down south last year for filming of East of Eden, for which she was photographed here at the premiere.

“It really felt like a perfect match – it’s such a beautiful place, the people are amazing, the culture is amazing,” Pugh said.

“The respect to ancestry and the land is something that I just want to take forward into my life every day.”

We think you’re amazing too, Pugh. Her acting as the antihero of East of Eden has earned her accolades already.

“I didn’t have a backup,” director Zoe Kazan told Netflix. “I didn’t have another person that I thought would be just as good. She is the exact right person to play Cathy.”

She’s been in a lot of heavy hitters this year already. The latest Spider-Man film is one of the biggest earners ever. While she’s picked up the mantle from Scarlett Johansson in the Marvel universe, she hasn’t got quite the same gravity being saddled with a sort of lacklustre post-Avengers set of films. But she credits Tom Holland with giving her a leg up into this latest film.

“This all happened because of Tom,” said Pugh. “Years ago, when I just kind of started my relationship with Marvel and Black Widow had come out, my Yelena wasn’t as obviously big as all of the other big superheroes. He, on the red carpet of his previous movie, when someone said, ‘Who do you want to be in the next movie with?’ [he] said, ‘No, actually, I want to do it with Florence Pugh.’”

We’ll see her again later this year in Dune: Part Three, where she’ll no doubt slay as well. Possibly literally!