Jude Law, Sydney Sweeney in Ron Howard Survival photo

It would be entirely understandable if Ron Howard, after directing more than two dozen genre-spanning films spanning six decades, would want to shake things up by venturing into something outside his proven comfort zone.

And it would be equally logical if the vehicle to get him there was a bizarre but plausible tale of a 1920s German philosopher who founds an experimental society with his lover/disciple on a remote Galápagos island, only to have the whole thing implode when opportunists come along and spoil the party.

But for all the intriguing possibilities of the concept and the game, the international cast includes Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Brühl and Sydney Sweeney, Edenworld premiered in Toronto, never finds its happy place. The overly elaborate tone prevails and comes across as more caricatured than satirical, while an extended running time accentuates the film's shortcomings.

The film certainly starts off promisingly enough, efficiently outlining the life and times of Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Law). In 1929, he escapes German society and its bourgeois values ​​to make a new home on the remote island of Floreana, living off limited natural resources with his survivalist partner, Dore Strauch (Kirby).

But the couple's solitary existence is interrupted by the arrival of Heinz Wittmer (Brühl), a World War I veteran with a young wife, Margaret (Sweeney), and son, Harry (Jonathan Tittel). They have been following Ritter's dispatches and hope that the land's pristine air will cure Harry's tuberculosis, just as it seems to have kept Strauch's multiple sclerosis in check.

Feeling inhospitable, Ritter and Strauch cast menacing glances at the new arrivals in their safari shorts and butterfly nets, thinking they won't last until the first rains.

But while the family proves surprisingly resilient, building a home for themselves and their unborn child, their coexistence is once again threatened by the arrival of Baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (de Armas), accompanied by a small harem of young men, who intends to build the most exclusive resort in the world on that rocky terrain.

It soon becomes clear that the Baroness, with her long pearl necklace and hard-to-place accent that sounds a lot like Anna Delvey, is a scheming troublemaker. She proceeds to pit the townspeople against each other, leading to an inevitable descent into madness.

Despite an inspired setting that could suggest Werner Herzog Gilligan's IslandHoward and screenwriter Noah Pink (Tetris) wreck the Queensland-shot vehicle in a hodgepodge of styles. Neither satire nor thriller nor detective story, the film cries out for a more incisive attack.

It's the kind of tale that would have been natural for the likes of Mike White, whose acutely devious character White Lotus sensitivity would have been right at home here. But while Howard delivers some effective scenes, particularly a heartbreaking sequence in which Margaret must give birth to her baby, little is known about Eden It seems consistent.

The performances are also, accordingly, uneven. De Armas does her best in her role as a femme fatale, though ultimately she lacks the satirical chops of a more experienced character actress to hit the mark.

Meanwhile, Law (so authoritative in another TIFF offering, The Order) becomes so boring as the smug, pontificating Dr. Ritter that when he finally loses his mind, you can't blame him for wanting to leave.

Only Sweeney manages to capture the viewer's sympathy and maintain the sanity of his character, the pillar of stability that is Margaret, who, as the closing credits and archive footage reveal, would remain on the island until her death in 2000, and where her descendants still host tourists today at the Wittmer Lodge.

Now, this premise seems more fitting for Howard.