One Battle After Another

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as the washed-up, strung-out, paranoid ex-revolutionary Bob Ferguson, who is unwillingly thrust from his life of seclusion and into unflinching chaos and danger. He and his teen daughter Willa (newcomer Chase Infiniti) are hunted down by Colonel Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), the leader of a militant police task force who 16 years ago brought down Bob's revolutionary group, The French 75.

Pynchon Myself. Adapting Thomas Pynchon to the screen for the second time after 2014's Inherent Vice, Paul Thomas Anderson hammers home with One Battle After Another that time truly is a flat circle, America is forever doomed to repeat its history, and how the human spirit continually fights against it for such measly progress. PTA has taken the political, borderline Orwellian anxieties of the Reagan era from Pynchon's Vineland and seamlessly transposed it into the present day with a cinematic rallying cry against fascism that reflects America's current political hellscape with all too frightening resonance.

A Masterclass of Tone and Tension. PTA has long been a versatile filmmaker with tone and style, and One Battle After Another is his new gold standard as it is exhilarating, satirical, and heartfelt — all in equal measure. Anderson manufactures tension by putting you directly into the paranoid, marijuana-riddled psyche of Bob Ferguson, through Jonny Greenwood's wonderfully minimalist score of gradually intensifying twinkling of piano keys, and the long tracking shots as it trails DiCaprio frantically dodging the peril that lies before him. It's a film made with so much urgency, vigor, sound and fury, but also finds levity and humor in the absurdity of the world Anderson creates that textually feels like it was ripped right out of both a graphic novel and the news headlines. One Battle After Another has to pull off the tonal balance akin to a high-wire act whilst riding a unicycle and spinning plates on your fingertips, and it does so flawlessly.

Colonel Lockjaw: An Extraordinary Villain for Our Times. Anderson's acute awareness not to downplay or undercut the very real threat of authority-abusing white supremacists in power, but still lampoon them for their idiotic, abhorrent values and actions, shows tactfulness that so many films lack. Sean Penn's portrayal of the ridiculously named Colonel Lockjaw brilliantly encapsulates PTA's approach. Discounting the humorous, possibly intentional fact that Penn looks like a roid-raging Robert F. Kennedy Jnr, he is the posturing figurehead of an oppressive system who represses his own insecurities by acting on pure anger and machismo. He's driven not just by his own personal vendetta, but also by his own pitiful personal gain. Penn brings the energy of a rabid junkyard dog and constantly has the audience terrified by his hate-fuelled determination one minute, to cringingly smirking at how utterly pathetic he is the next.

Chase Infiniti: A Star is Born. The guarantee of any Paul Thomas Anderson film is that it will feature incredible performances from across the entire ensemble cast, and One Battle After Another is no exception. But amongst the Oscar winners in DiCaprio, Penn, and Benicio Del Toro, comedic actress Regina Hall takes on a more dramatic role. There's the electrifying screen presence (as limited as it may be) of multi-hyphenate Teyana Taylor. However, it is the brand new talent PTA has uncovered in Chase Infiniti, as Willa, who shines brightest in One Battle After Another. Infiniti brings so much to Willa as a capable and fearless young woman who has been trained for this moment all her life by her father, but has been kept in the dark as to why. It's this dichotomy of Willa's strength and resolve in character, but naivety and vulnerability of youth, where Infiniti strikes a perfect balance and announces herself as a star in the making.