Now is the time. As the United States of 2025 has been hijacked by totalitarianism, now is the time for the power of art. In the words of legendary actor Ossie Davis, “Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change… it can not only move us, it makes us move.” Armed with an explosive screenplay, the strongest cast of any film this year, and a thunderous political urgency, filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson has unleashed what is perhaps his finest work to date. One Battle After Another is an insanely electrifying motion picture that speaks to the divided America of today, but don’t think Anderson’s sights are set on only one target. Everyone gets skewered in this occasionally absurdist and always potent treatise on a country that has gone insane.
One Battle After Another is “loosely adapted” from Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel, Vineland. Pynchon’s work was set in the 1980s and spoke to a post-Vietnam/Watergate era where counterculture revolutionaries found their place in the world becoming less urgent. Anderson keeps the relevance of Pynchon’s story, opening up the narrative and adjusting it to the sociopolitical horrors of today. As cinematographer Michael Bauman’s camera moves through the militarized streets and cold hallways of migrant detention centers (a striking imagery, as caged children pass the time by playing ball with their rolled up silver blankets), the gut-punch realism takes our breath away. Whatever madness is happening between characters, the director wants his audience to stay aware. We are in it.
As the film opens, the audience is introduced to a striking character named Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor, absolutely compelling in a performance born of fire), the co-leader of the revolutionary group, the French 75. These insurgents band together to fight back against their country’s ever-growing tyrannical government. Perfidia has found a lover in Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio), a fellow revolutionary who is nervously stumbling his way into becoming a half-assed Che Guevara. Bob’s heart is in the cause, but he gives off a vibe that he may be more comfortable handing out pamphlets and marching rather than building bombs and blowing up buildings.
Bob is a bundle of nervous energy and unfocused outrage. Perfidia always keeps him focused and tries her best to build his confidence. Completely dedicated to the revolution, the energy and commitment of her fellow warriors and the intensity of the “action” gives her an erotic thrill. One of the film’s most unforgettable images sees Perfidia at target practice, full pregnant belly on display, firing her automatic weapon into the desert with a war cry that could lead a thousand troops into battle.
Perfidia’s erotic heat will later hypnotize Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn, doing his best work since 2003’s Mystic River). Lockjaw is an absurdly vigorous and dangerously unhinged military yes-man. When the French 75 liberates the aforementioned migrant camp, Perfidia takes him prisoner and immediately, Lockjaw is salivating at the presence of such an impassioned presence. After ziptying his hands and placing him in a cage, Lockjaw tells Perfidia that he will “Be seeing her soon.” This is meant to be a threat, but we surmise that he is looking forward to being in her presence once more. From head to toe, Lockjaw is completely obsessed with this woman and, in his own twisted way, it is love (and lust) at first sight. Their ensuing pseudo-sadomasochistic coupling will lead Lockjaw, Perfidia, and Bob down a path of pain and years-long regret.
Bob and Perfidia have a child, but it becomes unclear who the father may be, as there are now two candidates. Bored and emotionally ill-equipped for motherhood, Perfidia goes hard on her insurgency while Bob becomes a stay-at-home dad to their daughter Willa. After a bank robbery goes wrong, Perfidia kills innocent people and (sort of) goes to prison. The 75 must go into hiding for the rest of their days.
As One Battle After Another moves 16 years forward where, living under assumed names, Bob is a burnt-out poppa to his now teenage daughter Willa (a stunning feature debut from Chase Infiniti). Willa sees dad as lazy and overprotective and thinks her old man is paranoid to the point of exhaustion. While Bob knows the importance of keeping her hidden, the 16 year old can’t come to terms with dad’s “no cell phones, ever!” rule. Willa just wants to be as normal a teen as their situation allows her to be. Bob disapproves of her friends, feeling even normal high school buddies are too dangerous a chance to take. As Lockjaw is tasked (by the white supremacist group, “The Christmas Adventurers”) with tracking down the French 75 and bringing them to justice (a.k.a., kill them all), Willa will come to realize how her father’s strict policies towards her safety are just.
One Battle After Another finds Paul Thomas Anderson at the peak of his powers. Beginning with his excellent debut,1996’s Hard Eight (or Sydney, the director’s preferred title), the filmmaker has consistently molded his influences into his own original cinematic voice. Within this jaw-dropping modern masterpiece, we witness the influences of Robert Altman (a mentor and friend), from whom Anderson learned the craft of balancing multiple storylines and characters. There is a bit of John Huston’s maverick spirit and a gut punch homage to the 1971 counterculture classic, Vanishing Point.
Perhaps the most pointed influence would be director John Sturges (The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Bad Day at Black Rock). As a filmmaker, Sturges had a unique ability to blend strong storytelling with perfect casts, while putting his characters against beautiful widescreen backdrops that enhanced the text. The characters who populate One Battle After Another are never swallowed up by Anderson and Bauman’s masterful Vista-Vision shot designs and the breathtaking landscapes of Texas and California. The picture is a marvel of visual composition.
One of the director’s strongest skills is his ability to match the right part with the right actor. This is one major factor to the enduring power of his films. Much like Altman, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese, Anderson has found his “stock company” of actors that he carries from film to film. His first four pictures featured casts that included all (or some variation of) actors Julianne Moore, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, and Phillip Baker Hall. Joaquin Phoenix starred in two of his works, while Benicio Del Toro returns for his second film with the director.
Leonardo DiCaprio continues to prove himself the best actor of his generation, infusing Bob with a humanistic absurdity born of the character’s askew moral compass. After what he has been through, the line between right and wrong is confusing. Bob’s impatience and anger towards his fellow fugitive revolutionaries (when trying to secure an exit strategy); his weed-hazed days and nights becoming an increasingly unreliable safety blanket to calm his worried soul. One of DiCaprio’s finest hours, this is a work full of intense emotion and heartbreak.
Benicio Del Toro has always been a hypnotic collage of the unique, regarding how he approaches his characters and an actor of nearly unmatched intensity. Bringing supreme focus (and dash of humor) to Sensei Sergio St. Carlos, a teacher of the martial arts who runs an underground railroad for Mexican immigrants, Del Toro is fascinating to watch, as he says little, but tells so much through precise movement and a deceptively calm demeanor. Behind the sensei’s relaxed eyes, is a man determined and ready for anything.
Regina Hall may have less screen time, but the often-underused actress finds a profundity to her character that allows the performance to stay with us.
Sean Penn. While the actor has played his share of dark and irredeemable characters (The Falcon and the Snowman, Casualties of War, Carlito’s Way), Colonel Lockjaw is a sight to behold. The Colonel is not a pure villain (no one on the film is clean), but a man who lets his fear of his true self pollute his outlook on the world. Lockjaw wears the costume of a strong and masculine presentation, but he is weak in just about every way. The desire to be a part of something where he can find respect, causes him to whore himself out. Lockjaw becomes nothing but a useful lapdog for the “higher ups” vicious endgame of removing any and all immigrants from their perceived White nation. The character earns comparison to Sterling Hayden’s General Jack D. Ripper in the Stanley Kubrick classic, Dr. Strangelove or; How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, only Lockjaw is even more fragile and self-hating.
It has been some time since a screenplay was able to both match and challenge the actor’s tremendous talents. Using his now-smoker rough voice to invoke Lockjaw’s unstable emotional state, Penn’s portrayal is one of bad skin, goofy hair, and misguided purpose. There are moments where we chuckle at the Colonel’s preposterously dutiful demeanor, but Sean Penn is too smart a thespian to make him a one-note caricature. There is a strange and dangerous eroticism between Lockjaw and perfidia that both actors play to the absolute edge. The man is conflicted by his attraction to a criminal and by the sexual pleasure achieved from her sexual degradation and humiliation. Anderson and his performer even allow for a moment or two of empathy towards Lockjaw. Penn is absolutely mesmerizing in the performance of the year.
While Anderson has a lot to say within his labyrinthine narrative and his screenplay has a powerful political charge, this isn’t a “message” film. This is a work with no guard rails and we are in the hands of a filmmaker who refuses to play by the rules. Brutal, fascinating, moving, and (at times) very funny, Anderson never takes a didactic approach. The director wants his audience to understand the nuances and embrace the societal comparisons to today, but entertainment is his main course.
Featuring a driving score from Johnny Greenwood, the world of One Battle After Another is a nightmare vision of political evils and social unrest. Paul Thomas Anderson doesn’t merely “tap in” to what is happening now, he immerses us into a story that no longer plays as a “what if” scenario. There is urgency to the piece. Satire and realism collide, exploding into a tragic allegory and a terrifying alarm. When Bob gets high while watching Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers, the symmetry of Anderson’s intentions become a perfect storm of filmmaking mastery.
There is no more alt-right “in” America. The alt-right IS America. Those in charge are rewriting history and living in a world of denial and racism that works in tandem with their jaw-dropping public crime spree. The United States is being terrorized by its government and their mounting crimes against the constitution continue to go unchallenged.
William Shakespeare wrote, “What’s past is prologue.” Engraved on the walls of the National Archives building in Washington D.C., this timeless quote serves as a reminder of how history dictates (or should dictate) our future.
Like Perfidia, Bob, and their fellow revolutionaries, there are still those out there who will push back and fight for free speech and Democracy, but they don’t use violence. Be it films, music, books, painting, or the spoken word, art is their weapon of choice.
For a fearless artist such as Paul Thomas Anderson, to create such an extraordinary work of humanitarian weight is in his blood. The piece entertains, shocks, angers, makes us laugh, and takes our breath away. One Battle After Another is a true masterpiece. That it can be seen as revolutionary is something to be proud of.
NOW is the time.
One Battle After Another
Written & Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (based on the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon)
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infinity, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall, Alana Haim, Wood Harris, Tony Goldwyn, Eric Schweig, D.W. Moffett, Kevin Tighe
R, 161 Minutes, Warner Bros.
