One Battle After Another
Writer & Director ~ Paul Thomas Anderson
2025 ~ US
Stars ~ Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio Del
Toro,
Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Chase Infiniti
Paul Thomas Anderson offers up another breathless kaleidoscopic drama
full of satire, poignancy, excellent ensemble performances and several effortlessly
suspenseful set-pieces. Under it all, Johnny Greenwood’s score plays between
scenes and time to provide a fluidity to all the chaos. Covering a lot of
ground, Anderson’s editing and script effortlessly leapfrogs decades and
characters with a credo that nothing changes that much and we are forever
chased down by our past. Indeed, the basis of the script is Tomas Pynchon’s
novel written in 1990, and then Anderson says this took him about twenty years
to write, but the observations and commentary, even with a little updating, are
still relevant.
I’ve seen
it criticised for being “liberal propaganda”, but the leftist terrorists here
are surely just as caricatured as the weirdo, heartless Right Winger cabal, the
slimeball white men plotting in bunker backrooms. The black gun totin’ pregnant
promiscuous revolutionaries who forfeit motherhood for jealousy of her own baby
and The Cause and the burn-out paranoid loser stoner dad are exactly fitting a
conservative view of Leftist Revolutionaries to sneer at. Anderson says that he
based the French 75 movement on The Weather Underground from the Seventies,
which is a weirdly dated exemplar when there are surely more current
possibilities to imagine (but you can’t be taken seriously if you say Antifa). Brett Easton Ellis accuses the film of “liberal mustiness”, of
not reading the current political room; but if the characters are manifestations of
what their enemies imagine, the film’s representation of the Right Wing is less
outdated than of the left. That
it provokes criticism for the portrayal of Prefidia too surely means it is
poking at both sides; not that Ellen E Jones’ criticism of Anderson’s tripping
on the Racist Jezebel trope is without merit, but that it perhaps misses a wider
picture where all the main characters are filtered through
questionable-cartoonish-broad filters. I bristled at both the naming of
characters as Lockjaw and Junglepussy for being trite/obvious/dubious, but the the
former is also funny as you roll your eyes, and learning that the latter is Shayna
McHayle’s stage name means it is owned as a deliberate provocation; and certainly she uses her screentime to strut it, even as it hits on blackpoitation.
Sean Penn’s inscrutable sleazeball weirdo is unforgettable: I mean, “Col.
Steven J. Lockjaw”… But I don’t think I go too far out on a limb when I say we
see such cartoonish types representing Republicans and the interests of White
Supremacy on a regular basis currently. Sean Penn finding the scariness of the caricature,
Lockjaw is both ridiculous and dangerous, which is a truth. Leonardo DiCaprio
bumbles and rants comically over his earnest intentions with Benicio Del Toro
quietly securing his corner by moseying through his scene-stealing whilst
everyone else does the fireworks. Teyana Taylor is the force of nature that
propels the narrative long after she’s gone in hiding, and Chase Infiniti as
Willa brings the down-to-earth, confused yet headstrong outcome to all of this.
The prodigy of both sides, Willa’s story is the most shaded and it is pertinent
that Infiniti’s performance doesn’t follow the broad strokes most around her:
her character is single-handedly dragging the film from its Seventies’ Classic
feel (“mustiness”?) into a yet uncharted future rebelliousness.
The police descending upon Sensei Sergio St. Carlos’ operation as Bob
argues about passwords trying to connect with his old movement and, especially,
the final car chase are highlights. Dark farce and excellent propulsive pacing mean
the momentum never lets up: we are dropped into the action and it never slows, and
despite what it is made of, it never feels polemical over the movie needs of
fun and thrill. Afterwards, you can do your think-piece. Amusing, exciting, a
little surprising, it moves from the debatable broadsides into something more
heartfelt and, through the symbol and promise of Willa, something more hopeful,
even if there is no certainty of what.
In fact,
how relevant and zeitgeisty it feels makes it a significant satire, because: if
‘Civil War’ was portentous in its declarations, ‘One Battle After
Another’ roots it all in the messy insecurities and weirdness of the
individuals concerned, trying to live down their past or abusing their
positions. In fact, its skewering of political extremities to personal flaws
and ego is evergreen, especially for a country always at war with itself and in
the Trump era feels more vital than ever.
