Glance over Leonardo DiCaprio’s filmography across the past two decades, and you’ll more than likely see a collection of hits and an absence of misses. Similarly, skimming over Paul Thomas Anderson’s directed features would result in the same conclusion.
It’s therefore no surprise that One Battle After Another, the pair’s first collaboration, is another hit; an almost-three-hour colossal tale that has all the hallmarks of becoming a mammoth part of our cultural and cinematic consciousness in the coming years.
Adapted (loosely) from Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, ten years after Anderson adapted Pynchon’s Inherent Vice for his 2015 film of the same name, DiCaprio leads as Bob Ferguson, a now-retired revolutionary, and father of Willa, played by Chase Infiniti, a guaranteed future star in her first film role.
Sean Penn, as Colonel Steven Lockjaw, is an all-snarling menace; his warped face and gait embody aggression. He’s responsible for the repeated battles the Ferguson family have to fight, a product of his obsession and run-ins with Willa’s mother, Perfidia, played by Teyana Taylor.
As Anderson’s grandest project to date, One Battle After Another is also his most awe-inspiring. Tension is created almost effortlessly by a score from Anderson’s long-time collaborator Jonny Greenwood, with the Radiohead multi-instrumentalist’s efforts evoking chaos and disorder through a seemingly never-ending mix of clinks and clangs. Maintained over the duration of the film, it culminates in the chase sequence in the last act, as narrative strands and characters are pulled together on the length of a single, relentless road.
In musing on themes of resistance, the separation of migrant parents, and the secrecy of those who wish to rule a society, it’s able to present a culture war that, though heightened, forces us to look for parallels between it and our own. Yet simultaneously Anderson trusts his audience: the parallels are unmistakeable but never didactic.
Films, in particular those as clearly rooted in and influenced by contemporary politics as much as this is, probably shouldn’t be defined strictly by awards. But, in a world where they are, this particular one should sweep them, giving Paul Thomas Anderson the Best Director Oscar that has eluded him his whole career.
