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Paul Thomas Anderson (\u201cThere Will Be Blood\u201d) is a man stuck in the past. Or at least he was. The filmmaker\u2019s 30-year career has covered an eclectic mix of genre and setting. Still, his films share a common theme of exile from the present, lingering with the aesthetics and themes of an old soul. Anderson\u2019s last contemporary film, \u201cPunch-Drunk Love,\u201d came out well over 20 years ago and has since been followed by five period pieces. Many have speculated on what drives Anderson\u2019s reluctance to set a film in the present: Is he obsessed with the films and books of the past? Is he scared to give his characters an iPhone? Maybe the present is too ugly to film? For what it\u2019s worth, I think that Anderson just hadn\u2019t found the right story and has instead found himself wanting to explore rich and diverse historical stories, maybe too intimidated to take on our contemporary hellscape. That is, until now.<\/p>\n
In loosely adapting the novel \u201cVineland\u201d by the hermetic author Thomas Pynchon, Anderson returns to the present, exploring it in all of its messy, smartphone-brain-filtered ugliness. \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d follows the revolutionary escapades of the radical group known as the French 75. Our protagonist, Ghetto Pat (Leonardo DiCaprio, \u201cKillers of the Flower Moon\u201d), acts as the group\u2019s demolition expert, providing explosive devices as they besiege Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities and rob banks. One of the few white members of the organization, Pat is in a relationship with an assertive group leader, Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor, \u201cA Thousand and One\u201d). When a police crackdown \u2014 led by the hard-ass, stereotypically career military man Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn, \u201cLicorice Pizza\u201d) \u2014 threatens the identity of the 75\u2019s members, Pat goes into hiding.<\/p>\n
This police pursuit is prompted by the cat-and-mouse relationship between Col. Lockjaw and Perfidia. Lockjaw, a virulent racist, develops a bizarre fixation with Perfidia, which blurs the lines between his racist antagonism and sexual obsession. When Pat and Perfidia\u2019s daughter is born (with Lockjaw and Perfidia\u2019s relationship leaving the door open to the possibility that the daughter is his child), Lockjaw makes it his mission to find her, perhaps ashamed of having an interracial child. All the while, Pat, changing his name to Bob Ferguson, moves to a town called Baktan Cross with his and Perfidia\u2019s daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti, \u201cPresumed Innocent\u201d). Amid these events, Perfidia disappears as the film jumps 16 years into the future.<\/p>\n
From the very first sequence, the film is an adrenaline-filled, punchy thriller, moving from set piece to set piece at a breakneck pace. Anderson is completely in control of his filmmaking here, deftly gliding through tones and visual language with ease. When the moment requires quieter tension, Anderson slows it down and moves us in, tracking our characters with tight shots that convey a sense that the tense scene might explode at any moment. When the moment gets bigger, Anderson opens up his most grandiose set pieces to date, culminating in an absolutely extraordinary car chase sequence through the hills of Northern California. The cars bob up and down with each peak, in and out of sight, the past chasing the future to create a sequence that is one of the most visually jaw-dropping and deeply resonant of the film.<\/p>\n