The Master (2012)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymoutr Hoffman, Amy Adams, Laura Dern

Have I Seen it Before: I know I did. I don’t really remember having much of a reaction back then.

Did I Like It: It’s kind of fun to appraoch this film, if even for a moment, like the filmmakers and studio treated promoting the film. Is the film a post-World War II drama about a broken man (Phoenix) failing to—and failing to try to—find his way in the 1950s, or is it a thinly veiled roman à clef of the early days of…

…eep. I’m a little concerned I might get my own cease and desist letter if I finish that description of the film. You all know what I’m talking about.

If the film is more the prior description, it kind of sinks into the ponderous messes that Anderson is occasionaly guilty of making. Phoenix lurches his way through the saga of a deeply misanthropic man with the same somewhat jevenile approach he would later bring to bear in Joker (2019), almost to the point that I think dubbing that later film a rip off of Taxi Driver (1976) and The King of Comedy (1982), when Arthur Fleck clearly owes a lot to Freddy Quill as well.

When it is that… ahem… other thing, the film really comes alive. The targets are hit, especially Hoffman’s performance as a pulp writer turned religious figure. You know the type. His delicate balance between charisma and bleak, unrelenting cynic makes the man it is all (allegedly) based on that much more fascinating.

One could almost begin to see where people might start to devote themselves to such an organization*, when it has only Hoffman’s charisma to act as its guiding light. It also, thankfully, shows its hostility towards descent, and the absolutely ridiculous string of questions with which adherents must cope. It’s a delicate depicition of a cult before it even asks you to do something terrible, just when its being its most silly.

*They are the only western religion, after all, with a very clear stance of the motion blurring feature of modern TVs. There I go again, tipping my hand about what we’re actually discussing. In my defense, though: That bit was positive.

One Battle After Another (2025)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Chase Infiniti

Have I Seen It Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: Clearly, One Battle After Another is one of the best films of the year. It is entertaining, visually interesting, well-acted, and probably most importantly, pointedly timely*. DiCaprio may be giving his best performance here, leaning into his aging persona without feeling the need to make it a punchline, as he occasionally did in Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood (2019). Some of the villains are a little over-wrought. Penn chews scenery regularly, but the masters he serves are funny, although I’ll admit just how amusing they are diminishes as time goes on.

And that’s the only real complaint I have about the film. At times, it feels too long. Themes are visited and re-visited perhaps one too many times. Points are perhaps belabored, distracting from the whole.

But let’s be candid: I’m not going to be the first person to say that this film runs a bit long in places. I’m not going to be the first person to say that Anderson’s films tend to run too long. Not by a long-shot. It may be his signature. What’s more, I can’t imagine that this complaint hasn’t gotten back to him. He’s been making films that felt long for his entire career. We can forgive this when James Cameron does it. We can forgive Martin Scorsese when he does it. We can’t just walk into a Paul Thomas Anderson film, accept that he is going to do it, and then enjoy it despite there being breaks throughout the film where our attention is free to wander? Of course we can do it, and judging by the responses, most people are.

*Good rule of thumb: if the conservative internet ecosphere complains about a film, it is probably worth seeing. If they are focused on one element of a film, doubly so. If the film wasn’t worth watching, they probably wouldn’t cover it in the first place. At the very least, their coverage wouldn’t find its way into your social media feeds.