By William Forseth
In his 10th full length directorial production coming four years after his 2021 movie “Licorice Pizza,” Paul Thomas Anderson delivers yet another scathing critique on the darker parts of American culture from the frame of fringe characters.
“One Battle After Another,” is based on the 1990 book “Vineland” by Thomas Pynchon, which is the second Pynchon book adapted to the silver screen by Anderson after 2014’s “Inherent Vice.” Relying heavily on the diverse surroundings in the Sacramento area, several parts of the movie are filmed here in Sacramento, including several of the movie’s suspenseful action sequences.
The plot itself, while borrowing heavily from the book it’s been adapted from, is screenwritten to a contemporary narrative. The prologue begins with the trials and tribulations of a revolutionary group caught in the fervor of their domestic terrorism as they combat an immigration enforcement division prepared to fight back.
In the prologue, the audience is introduced to Leonardo Dicaprio’s character and one of the film’s protagonists Pat Calhoun, as well as the Bonnie to his Clyde, Perfidia Beverly Hills played by Teyana Taylor. Following the tumultuous events of 16 years prior, we see Calhoun and his 16 year old daughter Willa, played by Chase Infiniti, and the life they have constructed while in hiding. That life becomes upended when the film’s antagonist and the orchestrator of U.S. immigration enforcement on the Mexican border Col. Steven J. Lockjaw, played by Sean Penn, comes back into their lives to settle unfinished business.
The background of Anderson movies play as much of a role in the storytelling of the film as fans would expect. Taking place across the Western United States, the audience follows Calhoun and Lockjaw in a cat and mouse game similar to other Dicaprio films such as “Catch Me If You Can,” with the stylings of modern day America amid the contrast of militarized law enforcement and its subsequent resistance. The gritty landscapes and disreputable characters show the ever blurring lines between legality and morality, community action and revolution, and good and bad within a divided country.
The film features several A-list celebrities, as well as some newer faces. Each actor however, brings amazing performances to their role. DiCaprio as an aged revolutionary is as competent as he has been in any past role, but the supporting characters bring humanity to the story. Taylor, as Perfidia Beverly Hills, leaves audiences in the first act anxious, as the wild card persona has never been so robust on the silver screen while continuing to remain grounded in realistic fiction.
Penn, as Col. Lockjaw, delivered an antagonist character not dissimilar to a cornered wolverine, using all of the resources and expertise at his disposal as a member of the armed forces to achieve his ends. Lockjaw was a predictable, yet incendiary being. A character cold and calculated, while remaining indentured to his sexuality. Anderson fans who remember Josh Brolin’s character from “Inherent Vice” will see something similar in Penn’s performance, no doubt a byproduct of both movies being adaptations of Pynchon books.
Benicio Del Toro, in his supporting role as a Martial Arts instructor with ties to the undocumented immigrant community named Sensei Sergio St. Carlos, delivers another great performance that paired accurately with the flat roofs and chipped concrete walls where the majority of his performance was found. Be it Che Guevara in the biopic “Che,” or as the smart mouthed street thug Fenster in “The Usual Suspects,” Del Toro has a history of delivering 3 dimensional characters without the need to be overzealous or excited, and this performance was no different. Del Toro’s cool customer typecast fits this role, and is no doubt the image Anderson had in mind when writing the screenplay.
Infiniti as the central character, Willa, gives a great performance, but one that was limited by her plot driven position as damsel in distress. Hopefully, this will help her to find other, more complex roles in Hollywood, since she only has credits in tinsel town starting in 2024.
Audiences should expect to walk out of the theatre feeling unserious to the plight of modern American politics. The ludicrousness displayed by the upper echelon of conservative theocrats is only contrasted by the disorganized and rag-tag bureaucracy of opposing revolutionary movements. The film does an exceptional job of making either extreme of the American political spectrum seem like petulant children dragging the country into chaos, either for personal enrichment or personal entertainment. It’s difficult not to look back at the news cycle after this film and not offer much past a nihilistic chuckle, as it makes the actions of both fringes seem like a series of mistakes executed by insecure parties.
If audiences walk out of the theatre feeling radicalized toward either end of the political spectrum, they would have lost the point of the film. Rather, there’s a warning that could be heeded from this movie, that the rattled sabres of yesterday may come unsheathed long after the battles were supposed to have ceased, one after the other.
Follow William Forseth on Instagram @WilliamForseth or email him at [email protected]
