{"id":10042400,"date":"2025-09-26T07:35:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T11:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vanyaland.com\/?p=10042400"},"modified":"2025-09-26T07:35:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T11:35:19","slug":"one-battle-after-another-review-good-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vanyaland.com\/2025\/09\/26\/one-battle-after-another-review-good-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"‘One Battle After Another’ Review: Good enough"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here\u2019s a conundrum that has mystified writers, editors, audience members, significant others, and possibly every single person to ever engage with art throughout human history: what does one do when they\u2019re the odd man out and can\u2019t exactly figure out why? Now, I\u2019m not talking about simply holding a contrarian view \u2013 a person should think and say whatever the hell they want, as long as they have a strong opinion, well-supported and analyzed, or, at the very least, possess the ability to crack a good one-liner about it \u2013 or the burn-it-down anti-populist cinema you hear from high schoolers who have just started to understand what the words \u201cnouvelle vague\u201d mean and suddenly taken it up on themselves to be the cinematic inquisitor of their arty friend group. I\u2019m talking about what happens when you see something like Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s One Battle After Another <\/em><\/strong>after the whole PTA release cycle has run its course, from initial rumor to delayed title announcement to the on-film teaser to first reactions to your own screening. It, for lack of a better phrase, has \u201cit.\u201d Then, whatever the \u201cit\u201d is, escapes you totally, and you wind up falling on the milder side of positive, like I did. That\u2019s when the anxiety starts.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shocking, I know. The raves have been ceaseless since it first screened, critics\u2019 beards frothy with foamy spittle or their Warby Parker frames fogged with feverish condensation — Spielberg watched it three times<\/a>! Warner Bros doesn\u2019t give a fuck if it makes money or not! VistaVision! Oscar glory! High 90s on Rotten Tomatoes! In short, the circlejerk is at full crank, the rhetoric going up and down like the rods on a steam engine at high speed. You feel two dueling impulses: the first is that you\u2019re watching a party that you\u2019re not invited to for whatever reason, and the second is that you really don\u2019t want to crash it and ruin it for everybody else. You\u2019re hyper-aware that you might look like an absolute moron if you\u2019re anything out of step, yet you\u2019re compelled forward to be honest. It\u2019s not cowardice, really: It\u2019s fatigue. It\u2019s arguments with folks down the line about why you didn\u2019t like it, repeated ad infinitum until you do something else<\/em> stupid in the future, and the truth is, you don\u2019t have any good answer for them as to why it didn\u2019t really connect with you. But this isn\u2019t some random festival feature that you can have the luxury of ignoring \u2013 this is Paul. Thomas. Anderson<\/em>. Pee. Tee. Ayy.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You could cite what he\u2019s done in adapting Thomas Pynchon\u2019s Vineland<\/em>, or, instead, what he\u2019s done in riffing on it. It\u2019s all very surface-level Pynchon, as beyond the premise\u2019s outline, the funny names, the conspiracy element, and the pop culture allusions, it feels like an imitation without the substance (and I should know, because I tried and failed back when I was that Criterion high schooler). Anderson ditches the \u201880s and Pynchon\u2019s introspective consideration of how \u201860s radicalism failed, bringing the action to the modern day, which is less dumb in practice than it sounds as a concept. By my count, the film\u2019s thirty-minute prologue \u2013 covering the rise and collapse of the French 75, a left-wing radical group which counts bomb-maker \u201cGhetto\u201d Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) among its membership — begins in 2008 or 2009, right when the fever of Bush-era radicalism broke under the hope-and-change of the Obama era. I think there\u2019s plenty to say about how that wave crested and radicalized Adam McKay, among other things, in the process, but you really wouldn\u2019t know it from what PTA\u2019s done here. His variation on Vineland<\/em> is to demonstrate how little things have changed<\/em> in practice in the 16-year gap between the prologue and the main action of the film, which is an interesting perspective, if one that\u2019s slightly unexplored. The kids were still in cages, regardless of who was in the White House.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pat, or \u201cBob Richardson,\u201d as he\u2019s later known, is an archetype out of time \u2013 bombing courthouses, liberating detention centers, robbing banks to fund the revolution \u2013 but the woman he fell in love with is thoroughly modern. That\u2019s Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor, magnetic as hell*), a fierce revolutionary who takes pride in being the public face of the French 75. She\u2019s also a pretty decent pro-domme, as we find out after she sexually humiliates Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn, doing a George C. Scott riff**) during the French 75\u2019s coming-out party\/raid on an ICE camp. They later meet up for some after-hours trysts \u2013 after the Colonel demands his hat and gun back while she\u2019s planting a bomb in a public bathroom — in which she takes Lockjaw down a peg (lol). Meanwhile, she gives birth to Pat\u2019s daughter, Charlene, right around the French 75\u2019s apex, right before she kills a security guard during a botched robbery. Perfidia gets nabbed by the Feds and, at Lockjaw\u2019s urging, turns State\u2019s Evidence. The group is systematically eliminated, save for Pat, his daughter, and a few of their friends, all of whom vanish. Perfidia, too, spirits away, fleeing from Witness Protection and disappearing over the border, never to be seen again. Then begins Pat and Charlene\u2019s sixteen years of laying low in Baktan Cross, until the past breaks the hinges off of their door and yells at them to get the fuck on the floor NOW or they\u2019ll start shooting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*If you haven\u2019t seen A Thousand and One, well, here\u2019s your cue to track it down.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

**This is funny score-settling<\/a>, given that Scott was Anderson\u2019s first choice for the Jason Robards part in Magnolia, and who, when turning PTA down, threw the script across the room and said “This is the worst thing I’ve ever fucking read,” which is saying something given that he was in Mike Nichols\u2019 Day of the Dolphin.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phew! That\u2019s a lot of prologue, but there\u2019s still around two hours and 10 minutes of movie left. What follows is a goofier, action-oriented take on Sidney Lumet\u2019s Running on Empty<\/em>, if Judd Hirsch had stronger marksmanship skills and been a single dad. Pat \u2013 Bob, now \u2013 Bob has done a pretty damn good job raising Charlene \u2013 Willa (Chase Infiniti), goddamn it \u2013 Willa in the sixteen years since Mom flew the coop, even if he likes his weed and booze a little too much. Yet there\u2019s a strain between them that\u2019s exacerbated by Bob\u2019s (understandable) paranoia, and she\u2019s probably the only American high schooler without a cellphone, given his fear that their conversations will be listened in on. Their dynamic has her as the pseudo-parent, ensuring that Dad\u2019s home and sober, all while trying to get through high school and be a regular teenager. It\u2019s in the bathroom at a school dance that everything turns upside down \u2013 one of the French 75 members still in the wild, Deandra (Regina Hall), emerges from a stall once her friends have cleared out and tells her that the entire brute-force of the US government\u2019s law enforcement arms are about smash up her life like one of Gallagher\u2019s watermelons. They escape the cops with minutes to spare and begin a journey into the countryside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bob, on the other hand, is rudely interrupted mid-joint while watching The Battle of Algiers<\/em> by a phone call. It\u2019s from the still-extant intelligence operation run by French 75 people, informing him of the same raid, including the one that\u2019s about to happen at his home. He gets out via a secret tunnel and makes his way into town, linking up with Willa\u2019s karate teacher. Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro) is a black belt and <\/em>a revolutionary in his own right, running a mutual aid organization out of his home \u2013 a \u201cHarriet Tubman situation\u201d as he laconically calls it \u2013 and he provides him with as much help as he possibly can, given the circumstances. See, Lockjaw\u2019s back on the trail, having been offered membership in the Christmas Adventurer\u2019s Club, a white supremacist secret society, which does thorough<\/em> background checks. Background checks so invasive that they might even uncover the fact that he\u2019d had an \u201caffair\u201d with Perfidia all of those years ago, and that he might have unwittingly fathered a child. In short, he\u2019s looking to tie up loose ends, and he\u2019s using an immigration raid as cover for his personal black ops mission. The problem is, he\u2019s just as much of a target as those he\u2019s hunting. All of these disparate stories will converge on a stretch of hilly California highway, with the smell of antifreeze, rusty blood, and gunpowder hanging in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is where I circle back and remind you that One Battle After Another <\/em>is, for the most part, a pretty good movie, especially when compared to what you get at the multiplex each week. It\u2019s often thrillingly constructed \u2013 the stretch of the film in which DiCaprio and Del Toro link up, with DiCaprio looking for a place to power his ancient cellphone so that he can get back in touch with the French 75 hotline and Del Toro mobilizing his network of everyday do-gooders to protect the innocent is beautifully<\/em> put-together, and it\u2019s genuinely funny. DiCaprio\u2019s moron-schtick remains endearing, and Anderson gives him a fuckload of material to work with. Chief among that pool of gags are his exasperating conversations with the revolutionaries over the phone, who are, if anything, sticklers for protocol. So when Bob can\u2019t remember what one of the verbal passwords is, the person on the other end refuses to tell him any information, and he fucking loses it<\/em>. It\u2019s hilarious banter, enlivened by DiCaprio\u2019s unstoppable moronic force smashing head-on into a wall of indifferent pseudo-bureaucratic gooberdom. Anderson\u2019s wit is fully intact, and even the little jokes, from the way Del Toro reacts to DiCaprio\u2019s fits of rage over the phone to Penn\u2019s pinched and goofy walk to the d\u00e9cor surrounding the Burn After Reading<\/em>-styled meeting of the racist minds that sums up Lockjaw\u2019s side of the story for those not paying enough attention, land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet the issue I have with One Battle After Another<\/em> isn\u2019t its politics (which are righteous and on point and such) or its humor or its performances: it\u2019s in how it compares to the rest of Anderson\u2019s filmography, and the depth that it lacks in comparison to something like The Master<\/em> or Inherent Vice<\/em>. Anderson\u2019s rattled off masterpieces ever since Punch-Drunk Love<\/em> (I am, and will always be, a person who does not care that much for Magnolia<\/em>\u2019s arch pretentiousness). His films have always had a rich center \u2013 a character, a time period, a concept, or, as often was the case, a perfect blend of all three. Here, that center feels obscured by something<\/em>, be it pace (the narrative moves at Mach 5) or momentum (the individual scenes fluctuate between that top speed and school-zone limits) or modernity*** or the lack of Robert Elswit, Anderson\u2019s longtime cinematographer, with whom he had a falling out<\/a> at some point during or after Inherent Vice<\/em>. God bless Michael Bauman, who moved up from gaffing to lensing Licorice Pizza<\/em> once Anderson decided to delegate after shooting Phantom Thread<\/em> himself, and I know I couldn\u2019t do a job as well as he does here, especially when working with a process like VistaVision. Yet there are few truly transcendent images in either of the films he\u2019s shot for PTA \u2013 I can distinctly remember the way Elswit framed fucking water<\/em> in The Master<\/em> \u2013 and I can\u2019t help but imagine what this movie might have looked like in other hands. Or it\u2019s the Jonny Greenwood score, which is just comparatively disappointing when held up next to his compositions for Phantom Thread<\/em> or There Will Be Blood<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

***PTA\u2019s Wes Anderson-like descent into the past was, in my frank opinion, a net positive for him as a filmmaker (in terms of the rich aesthetics he could explore) and as a storyteller.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever that missing element is, and I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ll ever quite figure it out, it\u2019s the thing that keeps this movie from attaining \u201cshrug off the flaws\u201d status. It is exceptionally<\/em> long, earning the \u201cepic\u201d status by sheer heft; its attention is split across too many competing plots, as if No Country for Old Men<\/em> got picked up for a series order instead of being pared down by McCarthy and the Coens into a feature. You don\u2019t really feel the length until the final act, in which Anderson dovetails from mediocre comedy (with a decent payoff) straight into a pseudo-iPhone commercial, which feels out of sorts with the story\u2019s angle. Perhaps it\u2019s just entertainment fatigue \u2013 there\u2019s so much happening here that, once it stops to exhale in the final moments, it sputters. Yet when taken as a whole, I don\u2019t know if there\u2019s anything in here that wasn\u2019t said or done better in Inherent Vice<\/em>, which had the benefit of being a proper Pynchon adaptation rather than merely inspired by one of his works. You can taste the missing fat in the \u201cI Can\u2019t Believe It\u2019s Not Pynchon\u201d substitute \u2013 the lack of melancholy or context or introspection that gives the work its depth and richness, even if it can make a decent metaphorical grilled cheese anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know this is a let-down \u2013 Over 2,000 words and still no provocative conclusion? <\/em>\u2013 and that a shrug of the shoulders over what\u2019s likely to be the Film Nerd Event of the Year (in VistaVision!) feels like a cop-out. Anything else would be unfair to you (or to Anderson) for me to say anything other than the truth, and sometimes, a flick just misses you. Yet there are two final questions I keep coming back to, both of which I often struggle with when evaluating movies from directors with whom I\u2019ve formed a natural parasocial relationship that accompanies admiration. First, if this movie were directed by Anderson Paul Thomas, a relative unknown whose first few features I\u2019d have missed for some reason, would I still be singing its praises? Or, second, is the context that I or a viewer like me will bring to this \u2013 being astonished by There Will Be Blood<\/em> as a high schooler, deeply moved by The Master<\/em> midway through college and precociously (and often pretentiously) enamored with Pynchon all the way through \u2013 blinding me to the brilliance of One Battle After Another<\/em> as a work of compelling, entertaining, Hollywood-at-its-finest, populist art? I don\u2019t think they\u2019ve got good answers, but I will say that their whispers kept me from fully enjoying or immersing myself in Anderson\u2019s triumph. Trust me, if you enjoy this parade and the celebrations of the man\u2019s talent, know that I\u2019m envious and that I hope to join you again next time around \u2013 this is just one battle I lost, and there’s still more to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a conundrum that has mystified writers, editors, audience members, significant others, and possibly every single person to ever engage with art throughout human history: what does one do when they\u2019re the odd man out and can\u2019t exactly figure out why? Now, I\u2019m not talking about simply holding a contrarian view \u2013 a person should think and say whatever the hell they want, as long as they have a strong opinion, well-supported and analyzed, or, at the very least, possess […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":10042075,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19452],"tags":[20180,24029,26409,35916,35535,1047,30948,35917],"class_list":["post-10042400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-filmtv","tag-film-review","tag-good-movies","tag-header","tag-mid-paul-thomas-anderson","tag-one-battle-after-another","tag-paul-thomas-anderson","tag-pta","tag-shrug"],"yoast_head":"\n'One Battle After Another' Review: Good enough<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Paul Thomas Anderson's 'One Battle After Another' is a good movie, but is it a good PTA movie? 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