Euronews Culture's Film of the Week: ‘One Battle After Another’ - PTA’s talkin' 'bout a revolution

It’s hardly a piping basking return to opportunity that Paul Thomas Anderson has not made a bad film.

From his breakout 2nd characteristic Boogie Nights to his misunderstood romanticist drama Phantom Thread, via nan Oscar-winning There Will Be Blood and nan Silver Lion-nabbing The Master, nan American filmmaker has consistently proven that he’s successful a convention of his own. And whether you prime Punch-Drunk Love aliases Licorice Pizza arsenic your slightest favourite introduction successful his filmography, his ‘weakest’ would still apical different directors’ surface credits.

So, it will travel arsenic a daze to nary 1 that his tenth feature, One Battle After Another, continues the impressive winning streak.

What it does do, however, is reply nan question: “What if we gave 1 of nan astir talented filmmakers retired location a blockbuster-sized fund and fto him sprout nan absolute crap retired of The Big Lebowski-meets-Mission: Impossible?” 

Get fresh for a very satisfying answer.

Loosely inspired by nan postmodern countercultural caller “Vineland”, One Battle After Another is PTA’s 2nd adjustment of nan notoriously reclusive and infamously hard-to-adapt novelist Thomas Pynchon – pursuing nan thrilling Inherent Vice. And location are parallels to beryllium drawn pinch nan ambitous 2014 stoner detective opus; isolated from this 1 feels tighter.

The communicative starts on nan Mexican border, wherever extremist vigilante group The French 75 motorboat a ambush connected a migrant detention centre. Among nan group's members are explosives master "Ghetto" Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his impassioned woman Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor).

The op goes according to plan, but sees Perfidia corner nan camp’s commander, Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn). She leaves an belief connected him. And his crotch.

A concatenation of events, which shan’t beryllium spoiled here, sees Lockjaw apprehension Perfidia, who rats retired her group. She past disappears, leaving Pat and their young babe girl behind.

Fast-forward 16 years, and Pat - now Bob Ferguson - is nary longer nan revolutionary he erstwhile was. He’s gone down nan Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski route, his mind progressively fried by copious amounts of tweezer-held doobies. The dishevelled azygous dad’s girl Willa (Chase Infiniti) is doing amended – isolated from she has to woody pinch her father’s paranoid rants and nary phones rule.

Except it’s not paranoia if they’re really aft you, arsenic Bob is vindicated erstwhile Lockjaw re-enters their lives. The erstwhile emasculated and still mesmerized subject man is hellbent connected uncovering Willa, and Bob needs to get his enactment together successful bid to protect her. That includes remembering nan revolutionary greeting codes.

For reasons which go each excessively evident erstwhile you dive into PTA’s modern American epic, that’s each nan crippled synopsis that should beryllium allowed. Nevermind really martial arts Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), nan beatified sisters of nan Brave Beaver, Comrade Josh who feels his revolutionary abstraction is being violated and a concealed nine of achromatic supremacists obsessed pinch “native sons” and Saint Nick fresh into each of this madness... You’ll person to caput to nan cinema to find out.

Trust us: it’s nan champion money you’ll walk astatine nan talkies this year. Not conscionable because One Battle After Another features immoderate terrific performances (Chase Infiniti successful her first characteristic rotation is simply a revelation, while Sean Penn and his Tom Waits-pitched timbre steals nan show), looks unthinkable (thank you VistaVision) and sounds superb (courtesy of Jonny Greenwood, signing his 5th PTA score), but because PTA achieves thing uniquely unclassifiable.

It’s a paranoid and propulsive thriller, whose frantic gait is simply a joyousness to experience.

It’s a stoner escapade pinch Chaplin-esque slapstick and a consciousness of humour that ne'er feels forced erstwhile it's not engaged hitting each its marks.

It’s a zany Dr. Strangelove-like farce about those who activity “purity" but extremity up as hilarious caricatures of power-hungry, virility-straining buffoons we are subjected to connected a regular ground connected nan news.

It’s a disapproval of powerfulness structures, doubling up arsenic a reminder that those who are nan astir extremist tin often beryllium nan astir cowardly; that good-intentioned idealists whitethorn not ever believe what they preach; and that those trying to beryllium strongmen are really weak.

It’s an incisive yet ne'er hectoring look astatine a divided America - not conscionable constricted to Trump’s but heavy inspired by its current supremacist excesses - wherever right-wing and leftist extremism are 2 sides of nan same coin, some indicating that heartlessness will beryllium our undoing.

And beyond its rallying outcry against dogmatism successful each its forms, it’s a moving and humanistic communicative astir a bath-robed dada having a unspeakable day, trying his level champion to protect his teenage girl from inheriting his past.

It’s deep. It’s light. In short, it’s a modern classic.

“Make it good. Make it bright. Impress me,” Perfidia orders Pat during their Mexico mission. PTA’s ticked each 3 boxes.

So, Viva la Revolución, down pinch nan Christmas Adventurers, and get thee to a cinema. In doing so, you’ll get to watch 1 of 2025’s astir unmissable theatrical offerings and nonstop a connection of your ain to those bankrolling daring and entertaining cinema for illustration PTA’s bravura filmmaking: More of this please.

One Battle After Another is retired successful cinemas now.