It’s been an exhausting year. Our country has descended into a funhouse of horrors where things are as stupid as they are evil. It feels like most people have been in a daze, unsure how to process the colossal dismantling of everything. Enter Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA), the wunderkind auteur with one of the most beloved filmographies in all of cinema. His films span so many different moods, periods and genres; the only consistent trait is that they’re all bangers. PTA’s last film, “Licorice Pizza,” was a nostalgic ode to age gap relationships and sleazy entrepreneurship. His latest film, “One Battle After Another,” was released in theaters this past weekend. There’s been a lot of excitement and curiosity surrounding this one; its staggeringly high budget of around $150 million had many scratching their heads as to why Warner Bros. would throw so much money at an arthouse director, and rumors that it was an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s “Vineland” intrigued the literature world. But the film lives up to its hype and then some. “One Battle After Another” rattles with urgency and vitality, tapping into the current moment and shattering our despondency with some masterful filmmaking.
“One Battle After Another” is probably one of the most overtly political blockbusters in recent memory; there is no subtlety to be found here. The film’s plot revolves around the political revolutionary group, the French 75, fighting the U.S. government, which has evolved into a hyper-militaristic authoritarian state hellbent on closing the border and hunting migrants. Running with the French 75 are couple Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia (Teyana Taylor). The film begins with their revolutionary salad days, blowing up stuff and freeing migrants from detention centers. They frequently cross paths with their nemesis, Colonel Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), who develops a perverse sexual obsession with Perfidia. He eventually catches the two of them, forcing them to scatter to the wind. Bob and their daughter Willia (Chase Infiniti) assume new identities while Perfidia goes into witness protection. The film then jumps 16 years later. Bob has become a washed-up stoner whose revolutionary spirit has been broken. However, when Lockjaw reemerges into his life and captures his teenage daughter, he must rejoin the fight and save his family.
The world PTA has crafted is tactile and pressing. He imagines a future where the influx of migrants from Latin America broke the brains of white supremacists who then plunged our government into a fascist regime … crazy, right? The country is tattered, with people packed like sardines in the shadows and warring against each other. The social fabric has been ripped apart as paranoia becomes the norm. Yet PTA navigates the biting political commentary with a sense of silliness; there’s a secret white nationalist cult controlling the government, but they’re called the Christmas Adventurers. It makes for an exhilarating and hilarious odyssey through America. This thing never relents, as PTA jumps between bank robberies, sanctuary city raids and desert car chases. He films everything with ingenuity and verve, reminding you what a true visionary looks like behind the camera.
Surviving this political calamity almost requires one to be perpetually stoned like Bob. He’s resigned himself to a life of bong rips and Turner Classic Movies; it’s kind of pathetic but also understandable. Yet watching him become reinvigorated by the quest to save his daughter is inspiring to watch. Beyond all the political wrapping, the heart of the movie is the father-daughter relationship between Bob and Willa. It’s about the guilt of having to watch your child inherit a messed-up world you couldn’t fix, and doing whatever it takes to protect them from it. And DiCaprio absolutely kills it as a doting weed dad. He gets to really flex his comedic chops as he stumbles through all kinds of absurd situations while spewing high rants about leftist language policing. But he always remains endearing and weirdly heroic despite his incompetence; he’s just a really passionate girl dad.
Yet it’s Penn who steals the show as Lockjaw. I haven’t seen a performance this physically dialed in since Emma Stone in “Poor Things.” Every little facial tick and goofy waltz is so precise and entertaining. He’s a cartoonish, sinister buffoon, and watching the psychosexual drama of his dueling fetish for black women and white nationalist ideology is riveting. Rounding out the cast is a star-making debut from Infiniti as Willa and a fierce, enigmatic performance from Taylor as Perfidia. Everyone plays their role in a large tapestry that sings.
“One Battle After Another” is nothing short of a miracle. I can’t believe a movie this daring was given the scale and resources to truly shine. It’s one of PTA’s finest works and stands as one of the only movies in recent memory to meaningfully grapple with the current state of this country. It’s a rallying cry that we must never stop fighting for the people we love, no matter how bleak things get.
