One Battle After Another

14

I can’t pretend that I wasn’t a little confused by this film right out of the gate. Both intellectually and emotionally. I know in theory it’s based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland. A book I actually read many, many years ago. But, like most written media, I have very little retention of story or characters. Regardless, Pynchon’s narratives normally live in some alt universe where a version of our reality, historical or otherwise, is presented in an uncanny valley version that resembles it but isn’t it. And therein lies my confusion with One Battle After Another. And, yes, I realize this probably isn’t an important point: but when the hell in time is this movie supposed to take place? The cold open introduces us to the French 75, a revolutionary group, and their kind of terroristic approach to counter-governmental action. But, based on our time jump later, this would place these actions maybe in the early to mid-2000s? Which makes no sense. Meaning that we’re maybe dealing with an alternative history / alternative universe thing? It just kind of left me disoriented for the first chunk of the movie. Only to pull me back in later.

This isn’t the first Pynchon novel Paul Thomas Anderson has adapted or semi-adapted for the screen. And, like his other swipe at it, Inherent Vice, there is a shambling, meandering quality to their tales. All centered around what amounts to a burn-out man with good intentions and less-than-stellar approaches. Joaquin Phoenix was PTA’s muse in Inherent Vice, whereas he has Leonardo DiCaprio here. And, frankly, it’s not even close. Phoenix has a kind of unlikable creepy edgy factor in all his roles that DiCaprio doesn’t. DiCaprio is a much warmer, much more sympathetically engrossing performer. Whatever you think of this movie, his acting alone is worth the price of admission. His Pat Calhoun / Bob Ferguson character is an explosives expert in the aforementioned French 75 and partner to Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), a true believer and dedicated revolutionary. We get a sense from minute one that Pat / Bob is only biding his time in this dangerous game until he can move on with Perfidia to a life outside of the danger of raiding detention centers, robbing banks and doing whatever it is the French 75 is all about. So, when Perfidia comes up pregnant, has a child, Charlene / Willa (Chase Infiniti), and bails to continue her revolutionary ways, Pat is left shattered. It doesn’t help when Perfidia is quickly arrested after doing something stupid and flipping on all her French 75 compadres, including Pat. Who goes on the run with Charlene, becoming Bob and Willa Ferguson.

Flash forward sixteen years and Bob is the stoner weirdo who seemingly lives in the woods in Northern California somewhere and parents now teenaged Willa in both an overwhelmingly overprotective, but also forgetful, way. She has her shit together. He does not. Little do they know there’s a scary Army man out there named Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn) who has been trying to track down the French 75 — and especially Perfidia and Willa — since Perfidia vanished from her protective custody a decade and a half prior. His character is an absurdly corrupt military dude, who has seemingly made his career being an unrepentant racist p.o.s., but is also obsessed with his maybe / not maybe relationship with Perfidia after her arrest. Perfidia, a black-power revolutionary and definitely not fitting his white supremacist ethos. I guess it’s his kink? Anyway, all 5’6″ of Penn is aimed at finding Perfidia, Bob and his daughter and he plays it in a very weird, but memorable way. He’s more oddball automaton than he is human. All stiff and seemingly IQ-challenged. It’s an incredibly strange, but memorable performance. One that, frankly, you could kind of imagine Phoenix delivering. Leo, though, just kills it. His Bob is funny and pathetic and also loving. This revolutionary with technical expertise completely depleted, living off his memories of past glory and clearly still mourning the loss of the love of his life. His daughter — smart and independent in every way he’s not — reminding him always of that loss. He’s just pitch perfect.

This movie is a grower. While it’s happening it seems kind of hectic and disjointed and like a runaway train. It’s expertly made, of course, but there’s something about it that feels almost like it was put together in parts and the seams never really closed. Not unlike most Tarantino-penned movies, where you could technically edit out some scenes — no matter how interesting film-wise or amusing in their dialogue, composition or performances — and it would make little difference to the narrative. In some ways the film feels like it’s told in chapters. Like a… novel! I think the people who are bristling — or retroactively bristling — at this film being well-reviewed are suffering from a modicum of buyer’s remorse. They thought they were going to walk into this taught thriller or grand statement film and walk out changed. Or at least awed by some sort of intricate construction. But what they got was the chaos and weirdly obtuse world of Pynchon. The over-the-top ridiculousness of the Christmas Adventurers Club, for instance. A secret white supremacist society run by a kind of clownish cabal of shadowy white guys that is both brutal and efficient, but intentional in its silliness. Nothing is meant to be real. It is meant to be a funhouse mirror. One of the main characters is named Perfidia Beverly Hills for god’s sake. And do we think Lockjaw is a surname that exists in this reality?

Point is, I also forgot myself when this film started, my brain not being able to put the time and place into context with the United States that I live in during the time of my being — one that mirrors DiCaprio’s almost exactly. But this isn’t meant to live in this universe, or any other in our understanding. And in that it feels hectic and stupid and violent and, at times, a little out of control. But, at its heart is a father-daughter story between DiCaprio and Infiniti that does ground the film in something unusually sweet and real. Something that is all bound together by Benicio Del Toro’s sensei character, who really grounds both the film and the father-daughter relationship in something authentic. Del Toro is honestly the secret weapon in One Battle, in a really naturalistic performance that sticks out in a very turnt-up character-driven narrative. You can almost imagine Del Toro embodying this dude if his acting career never existed. I could honestly watch him and Leo hanging out all day long. And therein lies the power of this film. It’s a hang. It’s art. It’s sitting looking at an impressionistic painting in a museum. An activity that I have admittedly eschewed because I don’t generally “get” art. But I get it a little more now. Some movies aren’t meant to be tight, plot-heavy boxes of realism. Some films mean appreciating this brush stroke or that spot of color or whatever inspiration one can draw from the work as a whole if that’s your thing. This will definitely be a film I will revisit. And the exciting part is that the next time might bring new and wonderful brush strokes or color, and even possibly a new interpretation of what I get from PTA’s mastery.