Ron Howard speaks on the accuracy of Sydney Sweeney’s childbirth scene in Eden. Eden is Howard’s latest movie that, after premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and searching for a distributor, finally hit theaters this past weekend. The movie features a leading cast including Jude Law, Ana de Armas, Sydney Sweeney, Vanessa Kirby, and Felix Kammerer.

While it fictionalizes things for the big screen, Eden‘s story is based on a factual account of a group of outsiders who settle together on an island in the Galápagos. While they initially spend their days trying to combat the brutal wilderness, they soon come to discover that the threats they face are more internal.

As per Entertainment Weekly, Howards explains Sweeney’s birthing scene and its accuracy. According to a travel journal written by Margret, Sweeney’s character, she was indeed “alone with the wild dogs.” Howard actually was “in that cave“ that she describes.

Howard did ᴀssert, however, that Eden is “first and foremost” a movie, and one that is in the thriller genre. He wanted it to feel that way while still “recognizing the authenticity” of it all. Check out the full quote from Howard below:

“Yeah, I’ve been in that cave in Margret’s version. She writes about it, and she was alone with the wild dogs, and it was an intense scene. So it’s again, intensifying, collapsing the timetable because I want this movie to be a thriller, and first and foremost, it’s a movie, but part of the excitement is recognizing the authenticity of it and feeling it in a way, whether you know about [the history] or not.

What This Means For Eden

While a smattering of intense and violent things happen throughout the course of Eden, Margret’s is one of the most personal. The character discovers she is pregnant shortly after arriving in Floreana, and her pregnancy remains a point of suspense throughout the course of the film as a whole.

This eventually culminates when Margret gives birth, as Howard describes, in a cave by herself. To up the stakes, she is surrounded by a pack of wild dogs. This may seem like an exaggeration for the big screen, but it is fascinating to know that it was in fact accurate to at least one of the real-life accounts of these events.

Of course, as Howard acknowledges, the travelers have all told different versions of this story. In another part of his interview, the director mentions that there were “a lot of vague accusations being put forward.” As such, it cannot be determined which elements are fully factual and which are not.

Our Take On Sydney Sweeney’s Birth Scene

Fact or fiction, the fact that this Margret scene happened on screen creates a niche trend in Sweeney’s career. One of her films from last year was Immaculate, a horror movie wherein she plays a nun who falls pregnant.

As such, Sweeney has now been cast in two movies that necessitate her character having a highly dramatic birth sequence. Sweeney handles the extremes of emotion well in sequences like this, so it was interesting to see her exercise this skill in a more grounded work like Eden.