As is standard with all of Paul Thomas Anderson’s work, One Battle After Another is a whole heck of a lot of movie. A behemoth runtime, a huge cast of characters, and a level of intentionality in every shot that makes itan impossible job to review the film after just one viewing (or in the case of this extremely lucky critic two viewings). My all-time favorite film, Boogie Nights, is one of his, and to this day, as it approaches its 30th anniversary, I still haven’t cracked every ounce of it. Not even close.
AND DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON MAGNOLIA!
PTA’s latest is a very very very loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland. So loose that Pynchon doesn’t receive any sort of official credit, just an acknowledgement that his novel served as inspiration. I have not read it, but cursory research gives me an understand of what it represents in terms of its setting and release date. Vineland was published in 1990, just as America first began reconciling the “greed is good” era of the ‘80s. The novel is set in 1984, and it follows ex-hippie protagonists who witnessed the death and subsequent re-characterization of the “free love” era during the reign of Ronald Reagan. Anderson’s film takes place in an unspecified contemporary era, and although there are no mentions of any modern day cultural signposts outside of an iPhone or two, one can’t help but to feel a little taste of our current sociopolitical woes in the texture of the film. It feels as prescient as it does timeless, and perhaps that’s the point. It really is one battle after another.
Again, this is a lot of movie, and since everyone is different these days as to what constitutes a spoiler, I will tread carefully. I went into this one totally blind, and as such, I want to preserve some level of that experience for you. The way that it all unfolds is full of surprises: who’s who, what their motivations are, and what one can expect at any given moment are all in a state of constant flux. Even the basic plot description I’m about to provide ultimately becomes moot when the narrative lens is pulled all the way back. And let’s face it, no amount of words I can type will change the fact that you already know if you’re going to see this movie (and if you’re that one person who is still on the fence, I remind you that PTA is one is the greatest filmmakers ever to filmmake).
Here goes:
The French 75 are a revolutionary group that uses pointed attacks to stand against power (think Symbionese Liberation Army, only not bumbling idiots). Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the explosives guy, and he works alongside Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), an outspoken activist who isn’t just enthused about her job, she finds it titillating. After a whirlwind romance, she and Bob are parents to a beautiful baby girl. Bob is ready to embrace family life, but Perfidia cannot be bothered to turn away from the revolution. Soon after the baby is born, Perfidia takes one mission too far, and as a result, the entire French 75 must go into hiding.
We then jump ahead 16 years. Baby Willa is now in high school, and her father is now a washed-up stoner layabout with a mad paranoid streak. And he has reason to be paranoid beyond his near-constant marijuana use. A military man who was once at odds with the French 75 has clipped a former member, and he plans to round up/kill the rest. His name is Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn doing a mix of RFK Jr. and Freddy Krueger), and he will stop at nothing to catch his prey, and in doing so, secure his position amidst a powerful group of elites.
Recently, IFC cleaned up and rereleased a fantastic thriller called Night of the Juggler, which is notable for a clever narrative convention: our hero is chasing someone while also being chased. It makes for a breathless, exciting film with little down time. One Battle After Another pulls this same trick, but at an exponential level. Instead of a linear cat/mouse dynamic, this is a web of clashing motivations with many permutations. Everyone is looking for one another while also fleeing one another, and each chase is informed by a network of power levers being yanked by another network of people and so on and so forth for infinity. It really is one battle after another.
A steady, intense pace is maintained for the film’s near three hour runtime, and this is punctuated by Anderson’s signature sense of oddball humor, as well as searing drama, and even a bit of cheeseball melancholy. The same way his Magnolia is not the punishing Oscar bait that it appears to be on its surface (while still delivering all the bells and whistles that punishing Oscar bait would require), One Battle After Another both is and isn’t the high octane thriller that would give Jason Bourne a run for his money. The thrills are there, yes, as is one of most unconventionally structured car chases you’ll ever see, but in PTA fashion it’s more. Meatier, more thoughtful, and way more interested in the humanity of its characters than it is in the wildly ornate plot. Example: A large chunk of the film is devoted to Sergio St. Carlos aka Sensei (Benicio del Toro), a karate school owner who moonlights as the head of an Underground Railroad for immigrant families. He has nothing to do with the French 75, but he’s happy to help our pot-addled hero in his time of need. As he sees it, a rising tide of revolution raises all boats. He’s got guns, beer, and a network or parkour skateboarders — heck, he even provides blind emotional support when Bob can’t recall the code phrases that his long dormant activist network requires in order to confirm his identity. And since it’s Benicio del Toro, he’s incapable of doing any of this without a level of hilarious self-satisfaction.
PTA has this effect on actors. His productions place his performers in a special zone where they can lean into their idiosyncrasies while somehow maintaining the reality of the film. Penn, who will almost definitely get an Oscar for his performance, is doing something so fresh and new that he no longer bores me. Regina Hall, one of the best actresses on the planet, plays a lower-key character than she’s known for, while capitalizing on her inherent intensity as well as a similar empathy that she displayed in Support the Girls (see it if you haven’t). Relative newcomer Chase Infiniti is a veritable miracle — the combined fire of a teenage girl and the offspring of a determined activist, she’s as rebellious toward her overbearing father as she is determined to protect him. Infinity seems able to do with a glance what 20 pages of dialogue couldn’t, and Anderson knows this; his IMAX lens is often right up in her face, providing her with a towering canvas upon which to blast her masterful use of subtlety through the back wall of the theater.
This, of course, is one of many reasons why you should seek this out on the biggest screen you can manage. And if you can see it projected on film, even better, you lucky sonifabitch. And if you can see one of the three VistaVision prints (a format that hasn’t been used since 1961), don’t even talk to me you blessed fool, for I am too jealous to engage with you. At any rate, if you wait for streaming, you are missing out on one of the great cinematic experiences of all time. This is up there with the Avatar movies in terms of it being an event you should make time for (although unlike Avatar, this will maintain much of its appeal on small screens if that’s how you end up catching it — no love lost to Avatar, which I dig). Between the grain of a picture that was shot on film, the stunning on-location vistas, the most brilliantly crafted focus-pulling this side of Munich, and the subtleties of every performance, every aspect of this masterwork demands to be seen at a gigantic scale. This goes double for the sound. You’re going to want to hear Johnny Greenwood’s complex and instantly iconic score through those towering speakers.
Yet for all the technical bombast and masterful craft, the most compelling aspect of One Battle After Another is the strong hopeful streak that runs through it. Looking back, all of PTA’s work finds this streak. My man has a thing for people making connections and the beauty of finding an anchor in a world defined by chaos. It’s what makes his films so timeless, despite so many of them taking place in extremely specific timeframes (Boogie Nights literally chronicles the dawn of VHS, and features the most memorable decade shift in film history). The characters in his latest note that despite their activism, not much has changed in the 16 year gap traversed in the first reel. Even so, the fight lives on, and a commitment to fighting a losing battle (the house/state always wins) is the bulwark between the greedy and the needy. Here in 2025, where the “haves” are committed to steamrolling anything in their path, it’s easy to just give up. But fight we must. It is our duty to gum up the works. We must accept that we’ll never win and fight as if victory is inevitable. Otherwise the future holds even harder battles. Better to have held the line than lied down upon it waiting to be crushed. Just keep on keeping on, one battle after another.
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Written by Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio del Toro
Rated R, 161 minutes
