Review: P.T. Anderson's Glorious "One Battle After Another"

by Eric Blume

If you’re a regular site reader, you’ve probably been following all the film blogs discussing the new Paul Thomas Anderson epic, One Battle After Another.  So we don’t need to discuss plot or beat around the bush…the question is:  Does it really deliver like everyone has been saying? I remember being so excited before seeing Licorice Pizza -- it too was heralded by early viewers -- only to find it contrived and uninvolving in the cinema. My vote, this time, is an unqualified yes!  PTA is a great filmmaker:  ideologically ambitious, profoundly humanistic, and daringly assured technically.  Anderson delivers with depth and panache here in this new contemporary, highly political film... 

Leonardo DiCaprio gives his most inspired performance in years (ever?) as a guy swept up with a 1990s political underground movement.  Anderson throws you directly into a whirlwind of a milieu without much setup, and part of the thrill of the first reel of the film is that you’re not spoon-fed information:  the action is fast-moving, the relationships are confusing and surprising, and your orientation is a bit off (but Anderson’s isn’t).  

Teyana Taylor, who plays the main revolutionary Perfidia Beverly Hills, helps shoot this film off like a cannonball:  she feels like a completely original character, taking what could be a cliché and fleshing it out in small moments of complexity.  We’re not accustomed to seeing female characters this selfish and intense presented without compromise, and there’s something fiercely unapologetic about Taylor’s acting that feels very thrilling and launches the pacing and energy of the film from the start.

The story skips 15 years to reveal DiCaprio’s character, now a stoner and alcoholic, and the father of a feisty teen (Chase Infiniti).  Through a series of complicated events, they find themselves being chased by the military officer who was involved with Perfidia years ago (played, to the hilt and back and to the hilt again, by Sean Penn).   

Around this central chase, Anderson fills the fabric of the film with characters very much in PTA vibe…dreamers, rule-breakers, system-busters, lost souls.   We could go on for paragraphs about the political dialogues this film engages in, but does anybody really want to read about that?  Let’s just say that Anderrson is tackling very big, very contemporary, and very controversial issues here.  This is a vicious examination of today’s decaying values, monstrous abuses of power, and vile hypocrisy.  It’s a full meal of ideas.

As good as DiCaprio is (he’s an actor who often bores me, but just superb here), he does not have the colossal power and bravura grandeur that Penn brings naturally.  As Daniel Day-Lewis did for There Will Be Blood, Penn raises this film to something beyond naturalism:  he lifts the film, in its most audacious moments, to the mythic.  Penn is playing both the specific human and the monolith within the same moment.  The film gets larger in his scenes and more dangerous, too. You feel that Penn was inspired by Anderson in a way he hasn’t been in years;  The specificity of self-loathing the director and his star find in Penn’s gross doubling-down is electrifying.

And while every actor shines in this film (Best Casting Oscar for sure)…the real star of the picture is the director. Anderson stages each set piece with astounding assurance, but with a sense of gonzo deliriousness, too.  One of the best aspects of the film is that it’s operating within several genres at a time: thriller, action, comedy, drama.  He doesn’t miss a single opportunity for a joke or a comic observation even at the highest moments of drama.  The stretch of the film that begins with DiCaprio realizing he is going to have to run from his home through to his escape from the hospital, is gloriously sustained with Johnny Greenwood’s simple but powerfully effective score, and the sheer energy that Anderson is bringing.  The final chase sequence, with concrete roads feeling like ocean waves, is a bit of a coup visually... watch the way it contributes to the pace and the urban vibe of the film.  Everything is shaped so precisely:  the film is essentially a series of extended segments that Anderson connects with enormous propulsion and observation.  It’s a dazzling feat of direction that I imagine will finally bring him his long-overdue Oscar regardless of how the Best Picture race turns out.

There are moments where the film feels like a Stanley Kubrick film, and other moments when it feels vaguely like a Quentin Tarantino film, but at every moment, it is absolutely a Paul Thomas Anderson film. 

I think Anderson has made two unqualified masterpieces (Boogie Nights and There Will Be Blood), and three near-masterpieces (Magnolia, The Master, and Phantom Thread).  For me, One Battle After Another lands at the top of that near-masterpiece list.  There are a few moments in the film that are almost too cheeky, where you’re a bit too aware of the virtuosity. That's true of his two masterpieces, too, but the virtuosity works in sweet opposition to the milieu of Boogie and in terrifying symphony with the milieu of Blood).  In One Battle... most of the characters have to operate in one lane emotionally, so I missed the deep character detail of some of his other films. 

But bottom line, One Battle After Another is the real deal.  It’s pure cinema:  bold, challenging, complex, and riveting.  This is a deeply personal film that somehow got through the studio system, getting a big wide release to a very divided public.  Anderson has truly met the moment.

P.S. For the Oscars, because everyone loves discussing those, I can't see it missing Picture, Director, Supporting Actor for Penn, Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Sound, and Editing.  DiCaprio stands a very good shot at his seventh nomination... a much stronger shot than he had for Killer Moon at any rate.  Teyana Taylor seems most likely for a Supporting Actress nomination, but she has limited screen time...could go either way.  Infiniti could get swept along if the film hits huge, but I think her reward is the great reviews and the start of a great career.  Regina Hall is lovely in her handful of scenes, but she ultimately has very little to do.)