Preamble

This may be the most challenging preamble I have to write. It’s not due to a sense of writer’s block, but rather because it may compromise my ethos for this blog. I’ve never taken myself seriously because I’m just another schmo with enough gumption to hit send after a review has been written. The same could be said about my personal life, where I don’t broadcast my problems, but rather deal with them in my own way. As such, after a protracted absence, I try to deal with it with some jokey movie quote and a half-baked theatre stage metaphor.

But that’s not the case this time. Without going into it too much, my motivation has sunk to an all-time low. Part of this has come from falling ill recently and it lingering a little longer than necessary. But even my usual joy of the Halloween season has been absent. But hopefully that’s at an end now, and I’m glad to be back.

One Battle After Another came out during a self-imposed isolation, and despite the heavy hitters of horror cinema also being released at the same time, it’s the one film I most wanted to see. So, with that in mind, have you seen Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest? Let me know in the comments below.

Review

Early into One Battle After Another, a cocksure Perfidia (Teyana Taylor) states, “Make it good. Make it bright. Impress Me.” The line is tacit in conveying the weight of a new Paul Thomas Anderson film. For the most part, Anderson’s latest is a rollicking and often quite hilarious experience, but it lacks the depth of his other films. Partly based on Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, One Battle After Another is about a former revolutionary, Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), who must protect his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), from a determined Colonel- Lockjaw (Sean Penn).

Whilst Anderson’s adaptation of Pynchon’s Inherent Vice primarily engaged as an experiential piece of cinema that plays like a mosaic of an era, One Battle feels much more in line with the director’s previous films. For one, Anderson has had a knack for portraying the strife between parents and children through quite an interesting lens (such as capitalism in There Will Be Blood and cycles of abuse in Magnolia).

There’s an emotional truth to this aspect in Battle, particularly in a touching coda that feels the closest to the confessional quality that permeated Magnolia. And conceptually, some fascinating dynamics are signposted but never explored, such as Perfidia’s revolutionary streak clashing with her duties as a mother.

But One Battle’s true Achilles heel comes from the handling of Lockjaw. Even when Anderson draws his antagonists in heightened ways, such as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s abrasive Dean Trumbull in Punch-Drunk Love, there’s a trace of humanity in them. The same could not be said for the Colonel. He’s cartoony on the page, and Sean Penn’s performance does not help matters either, playing him with the twitchy energy of an alien’s first day in human skin. This is a shame, as there are seeds of his revulsion and attraction to something he hates; however, this aspect had more finesse in the portrayal of Frollo from Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

What remains is a propulsive and energetic verve that strangely works with Anderson’s filmmaking sensibilities. The use of large open spaces and patient cutting, which has become a staple of his modern work, is given a vivid and classical sense with the use of VistaVision. It particularly lends his third act a beauty and tension, as long shots of the desert landscape result in a protracted Hitchcockian-inspired car chase. This quality is also present in Jonny Greenwood’s score, which is a blend of tension-rising piano music and discordant xylophone use.

In this way, One Battle almost always exists in the planning and motion. Methodical and buttoned-up meetings, contrasted with the franticness of the best-laid plans going awry, are where the film gets its comedic mileage. This is also helped by Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio Del Toro’s double act that plays like an earnest replay of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. DiCaprio’s signature anger and comic timing are also used to significant effect, threatening to almost shake the film up, even when the camera remains static. Chase Infiniti also casts a great impression with a performance that’s equal parts determined and vulnerable.

However, despite my goodwill towards these aspects of the film, One Battle After Another feels more concerned with the quirky pitstops of the journey than with its meaning. Much like Ari Aster’s recent picture, Eddington, its themes and politicking are surface-level and could have benefited from more refinement.