TORONTO, Canada—Company breeds misery in Eden, Ron Howard’s based-on-real-events thriller about a group of disparate souls whose quest for freedom, rebirth, and redemption is stymied by their base instincts and proximity to each other.

Based on the conflicting reports of those who survived this astonishing saga, the director’s grungy, edgy affair—premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival—is part biblical cautionary tale, part Lord of the Flies nightmare. Never dull if also only intermittently surprising, it’s another of the director’s sturdy star-studded genre efforts.

In the winter of 1932, Heinz Wittmer (Daniel Brühl), his wife Margret (Sydney Sweeney), and his son from a first marriage, Harry (Jonathan Tittel), arrive on the Galapagos isle of Floreana. There, they intend to live alongside, and by the teachings of, Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and his wife Dore (Vanessa Kirby), who relocated to this inhospitable rock in the middle of the ocean as a rejection of their native Germany and its increasingly fascist society.

Back home, Friedrich has become a media sensation due to the daring path he’s set before himself, all of it driven by his toil on a manifesto that expresses his philosophy for a new world order. Friedrich believes that the meaning of life is pain, because, “In pain, we find truth. And in truth, salvation.” He and Dore practice what they preach, with Friedrich having pulled out all his teeth to avoid infection and Dore struggling with multiple sclerosis.

Ron Howard on the set of Eden

Friedrich and Dore have settled on........

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