One Battle After Another (2025)
Director:
Paul Thomas Anderson
Stars:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor, Benicio Del Toro, Chase Infiniti
Short
Review, no spoilers
One Battle After Another is a
swirling, exhilarating maelstrom of absurdity and profundity and a wildly
entertaining masterpiece from Paul Thomas Anderson. Further refining an
approach to his characters that is peculiarly humane and sensitive to their
follies and fates, PTA’s heroes are once again both protagonists and victims in
the time and environment they find themselves in. The result is a presentation
of a world as disturbingly volatile, but also with the potential for unexpected
and imperfect heroism.
Full
Review (spoilers)
In One Battle After Another, geeky guerillas are seen teamed
up with ball-busting riot girls and pitted against an insidious far right
consortium of ‘police’ enforcers in military uniform and MAGA-style, mason-like
power hoarders who meet in the back rooms of big suburban heaps like benign
golf buddies. The flipside of said back rooms is a ramshackle rabbit warren of
rebels and Hispanics, as seen when chilled-out Sensei (Del Toro) comes to the
aid of lapsed revolutionary Bob (DiCaprio). Environment is subtly but
repeatedly contrasted throughout, with the rebels seen occupying cluttered and
warmly lit settings, while the powers that be are seen in colder, barer
circumstances lacking in evidence of life. This is aligned with the world of
the mainstream and a barren witness protection home that Bob’s lover Profidia
is placed in (also from where she escapes, seen drifting as easily in to Mexico
as it is hard to make the opposite journey) a stark cell for this firebrand of
a female after getting caught and coerced in to becoming a ‘rat’.
Teyana Taylor as Profidia is F.I.E.R.C.E,
blowing the screen apart with intimidating charisma but she’s also far from two
dimensional, delivering a striking performance that is balanced by an equally
filter-less lapse in to self-doubt when she becomes a mother. Her denial in the
face of maternity is sensitively and non-judgementally portrayed – hilarious
when Bob watches on baffled as she uses a heavily pregnant belly to rest her
AK47 on (mirrored later on when daughter Willa engages in her own gun training
as a teenager); tragic when she comes to hate her role as mother, but
understandable when she draws on feminist rage-speak to defend her decision to
leave. Leonardo DiCaprio is wonderful as a middle-aged ‘90s dropout,
Lebowski-esque without being derivative, very funny in his dirgy vulnerability
and endearing in his own imperfect fatherhood that is nevertheless proven to be
utterly dedicated. Sean Penn is valiantly un-vain and hard to watch, a credit
to what might be his best performance as a grotesque fascist who is as
hilarious as he is pitiful, representing the ridiculous but real threat of a
silly bully with worrying power and childish urges. It’s a standout portrayal
that epitomises the serio-comic nature of the film – Colonel Lockjaw’s journey
from lovelorn fool who becomes dangerously obsessed with Profidia, to
ruthlessly racist anti-father when he discovers he has a compromisingly mixed-race
daughter, ending in a seeker of secret society acceptance so giddily needful
you pity his tragic end. Blending himself perfectly in to the rhythm of the film,
at one point he licks what turns out to be a comb in a curious and seemingly
perverse gesture before slicking his ghastly hair, and then we understand it as
preparation ahead of a meeting with the daftly named Christmas Adventurers, an
organisation of powerful individuals he is fervently desperate to be a member
of.
We can go back to Boogie Nights for
PTA’s understanding of the power that sex has, sometimes propelling individuals
to behave ridiculously and sometimes fatally. Either way, it becomes a part of
his characters’ journeys – Profidia is shown to be full-blooded whatever, whether
getting riskily aroused after helping her beloved Bob set up his rockets, or
using it to torment and humiliate Lockjaw. As a result of the latter however,
she inadvertently ignites a sexual obsession within Lockjaw which will be her
downfall. On all sides we see driven individuals that nevertheless have
penetrable points (literally in the case of Lockjaw when he blackmails Profidia
in to gratification involving a handgun…). Even the revolutionaries - at odds
with the romantic image of honourable idols willing to suffer and die for their
cause no matter what – can be bullied in to informing on each other. Seemingly
bulletproof Profidia herself becomes a pariah for ratting her fellow rebels out.
In fact, although Bob would appear to be the weakest link on the surface, (confirmed
by Profidia’s unimpressed mother), he instinctively rises to the responsibility
of fatherhood, and later his scrappy, angst-ridden beta male demonstrates an
unconventional heroism when he's rocked out of his dope-smoking world to rescue
Willa from Lockjaw. In doing so, Bob provides a heartening vision of hope -
that the apparently useless drop outs of the past might – god forbid - still be
of some use to younger generations.
PTA also demonstrates a surprising
flair for thrilling tension, sometimes in unusual ways. Whether it be Bob’s
hysterical struggle to remember code speak, or a wait for a mobile paternity
test (it’s hard to discern who’s more disgusted by the result, Lockjaw or
Willa), it’s edge of the seat stuff throughout. There are various chases and
two standout scenes towards the end: the first is Willa’s escape from
assassination when the hitman hired to dispose of her by Lockjaw deliberates in
stoic indecision for an agonising time before the most understated rescue ever,
even while sacrificing his life in the process. The second sees a Christmas
Adventurer attempting to finish the job when his Jaguar chases Willa in the
hitman’s car over seemingly endless desert hills. Out of context, the vision
might have been soothing, with repeated shots of both cars emerging and
ducking, emerging and ducking. As it is however, the scene stretches nerves to
the limit, finally culminating in the fist-pump moment when Bob’s buzzing
Nissan Sentra turns up to try and save Willa once and for all.
Nevertheless, Willa has her own
smarts, cleverly luring the CA in to ploughing in to the back of her car and mustering
the courage to take him out from the side of the road. A tense reunion later,
and ‘father’ and ‘daughter’ are back together. Meanwhile, Lockjaw is apparently
lying dead in his own car after the CA shot him, but then an epilogue reveals
that Lockjaw miraculously survived and is apparently to be accepted in to the
Christmas Adventurers after all. Hilariously questioned on how he came to be ‘raped
in reverse’ before being led in to a plain office with an albeit stunning view,
he couldn’t be happier. This will be the Colonel’s last scene though, as gas
pumps inconspicuously in to the room; the final shot is of his deformed face
framed in a furnace as the CA’s dispose of his body.
In One Battle After Another, PTA takes
on a ferociously divided world and depicts it as sometimes tragic and sometimes
ridiculous with flawed characters who ‘win some and lose some.’ A wisely
soothing sentiment from the reliably charismatic Benicio Del Toro as Sensei reminds
us to remain calm even in times of strife. Nevertheless … OBAA is unquestionably
a film that deserves to win big at the Oscars – Viva la revolución!
