Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Picture this: Across the United States, jackboots terrorize the populace on the whims of its lawless government. Uniformed thugs black-bag those opposed to the regime, as well as those unopposed and caught in between; an invisible iron hand has life in America in its indiscriminate grip, and ethnonationalist evildoers in a position of power wield it to their own personal ends.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another would be a bleak dystopian vision if not for the fact that real life took the inside racing line, and came out of the corner ahead.
Caught in this uncanny nightmare is Leonardo DiCaprio, who stars as Bob, a revolutionary couch-bound for more than a decade, defanged by the birth of his daughter, but who must now spring back into bumbling action when a military leader, played with meat grinder intensity by Sean Penn, comes looking for him and his daughter.
Anderson has always been a prodigiously talented filmmaker, and he seemed to know it too. He rolled out technically impressive long takes in sprawling early films like Boogie Nights and Magnolia and he’s since then taken on romance, screwball, high drama, and intricate character studies with equal aplomb and subsequent success.
Now, the unfortunate serendipity of One Battle releasing in Trump’s America puts it in overt conversation with the times. It presents kind and capable resistance leaders, flunky, out-of-shape revolutionaries, as well as authoritarian strongmen and shadowy conspirators who are as pathetic as they are terrifying. What kind of revolution is possible in a place like this?
Anderson’s filmography has seen him shift genres and moods, and while there’s always drama in comedy and vice versa, One Battle After Another is something that transcends. Looking back, Anderson’s work almost feels like prog rock, but One Battle is something akin to jazz fusion as moods do more than weave, they exist alongside each other, riffing to ever-increasing effect.
It makes One Battle rib-ticklingly funny and chilling at the same time, devastating in its realistic depiction of life under authoritarian rule, but equally inspiring in its insistence on the indomitable humanitarian efforts that persist despite it all. It combines swagger and terror in equal measure, it’s thrilling, moving, gut-wrenching, all at once, and Anderson has it all on a high-tension string.
This requires not only prodigious writing and directing on the part of Anderson, but also excellence right down the line, from Andy Jurgensen’s masterful editing to Johnny Greenwood’s piquing score, a live wire running through One Battle that will have you at the edge of your seat and ultimately melted down into a puddle when all’s said and done.
This is social satire with reality itching to be let out of the waiting room. It’s a heartfelt drama about a nation in duress, a political horror story, and a twisted comedy of manners molded into an angry critique that leaves a breath for a cure. This is the funniest, most piercing, hopeful text one concerned friend has sent to his dysfunctional and wayward pal, only it’s a filmmaker and his troubled nation.
Mikkel Frederiksen 