Farce and tragedy, the personal and the political, revolutionaries and the establishment, the intimate and the epic, character study and zeitgeist metaphor — opposing forces clash thematically, aesthetically, and brilliantly in Paul Thomas Anderson’s ambitious and audacious One Battle After Another.
The writer-director, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, veers back into the too-much territory that marked his official Pynchon adaptation Inherent Vice — to say nothing of Anderson’s sprawling Magnolia — and while the storytelling loses some of its snap in certain sections of the final third, One Battle After Another tackles a spectrum of storylines, from domestic terrorism in the face of government repression to the power of family and community in uncertain times.
The exact year in the film is never specifically determined — it’s a story that would have been as of-the-moment a decade ago as it is now — and opens with the underground revolutionary group French 75 liberating a refugee camp at the U.S.-Mexico border. While her lover Pat (Leonardo DiCaprio) is in charge of explosives, Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor, A Thousand and One) captures the camp’s commander Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), who is both infuriated by and erotically besotted with her. Perfidia and Lockjaw’s paths continue to cross, but he continually refuses to arrest her in the hopes that he might someday make her his mistress.
Lockjaw seemingly gets the chance when Perfidia is arrested following a botched bank robbery committed by French 75, but she flees from him and from the witness-protection deal she’s granted after identifying the other members of the group. Pat takes off with his and Perfidia’s infant daughter, and the two start a new life under the names “Bob” and “Willa.” Sixteen years later, Bob still misses Perfidia, sinking into dissolute drug and alcohol use, but he nonetheless keeps Willa (screen newcomer Chase Infiniti) combat-ready. This teenager is the star of her dojo (with Benicio Del Toro contributing a delightfully droll performance as her sensei), and she knows all the old French 75 passwords and codes, because Lockjaw and the authorities could still come after them at any moment. And they do.
Much of the pleasure in One Battle After Another comes in unexpected turns and revelations, which this review will keep to a minimum. Suffice it to say that, over the course of its plot, the film addresses wealthy white-supremacist power structures (represented by Lockjaw and his backers), as well as the pushback that they have always and will always receive from the communities they target.
And if these ideas sound didactic, the film skillfully weaves them within car chases and satire and love stories, bolstered by searing performances and stunning VistaVision camerawork from Anderson and his credited director of photography Michael Bauman. Frequent Anderson collaborator Jonny Greenwood contributes another memorable score, equal parts taut and teasing, while editor Andy Jurgensen — with rare exception — keeps both the emotional content and the action sequences popping. (There’s one spectacular car chase late in the game that combines camera placement, cutting, and score to such bravura impact that it immediately enters the pantheon.)
Penn is doing some of his best work here, at a point in his forty-plus–year screen career when he could afford to take it easy and avoid risk. His unusual-by-design military haircut and thousand-yard stare, to say nothing of the fact that he’s playing a character named “Lockjaw,” seeds an expectation of self-parody, but Penn mines this military man for both ugly bravado and needy inadequacy. They’re infrequently on-screen together, but DiCaprio is very much his equal, tapping into physical comedy in a way we haven’t seen since The Wolf of Wall Street, never losing sight of the stakes and the danger that this character must overcome not only for himself but for his beloved daughter. You’d never know Infiniti was a relative newcomer; she’s fully at ease and on par with both of her formidable co-stars, in addition to sharing some moving moments with Regina Hall as another French 75 survivor.
To talk in a realistic way about race and racism in this country, and the power structures that benefit from it, has led to more than one journalist losing their job of late, so it feels all the more bold and essential for Anderson to take on this topic in a mainstream, big-studio movie with marquee names and an awards-season release pattern. One Battle After Another won’t be a cure, but it’s a declarative and forthright statement about what ails us.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Screenwriter: Paul Thomas Anderson; inspired by the novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon
Cast: Teyana Taylor, Leonardo DiCaprio, Regina Hall, Sean Penn, Chase Infiniti, Benicio Del Toro
Producers: Adam Somner, Sara Murphy, Paul Thomas Anderson
Executive producers: Pete Chiapetta, Andrew Lary, Anthony Tittanegro
Cinematographer: Michael Bauman
Production design: Florencia Martin
Editing: Andy Jurgensen
Music: Jonny Greenwood
Sound design: Christopher Scarabosio, re-recording mixer/supervising sound editor
Production companies: Warner Bros. Pictures, Domain Entertainment, Ghoulardi Film Company
In English
161 minutes
