Every year, in the time between when the Academy Award nominations are announced and the actual Oscars ceremony is held, OUT FRONT Magazine movie reviewer and associate editor Julie River tries to watch all the movies nominated for Best Picture that year. Can she make it through all 10 films again? Find out on OFM’s Road to the Oscars!
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The latest film from acclaimed and renowned director Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another, is a fulfillment of Anderson’s long-time ambition of adapting Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 post-modern novel Vineland. I’ve long admired Anderson’s films, particularly his bold attempt to make an art film with Adam Sandler as the star (2002’s Punch Drunk Love). So I was excited to see what Anderson was up to next, especially when the subject matter involved far-left revolutionaries. The result is a non-stop thrill ride where the film sides with the leftist militants against a corrupt American government.
The film opens with “Ghetto” Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his girlfriend Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), who are members of a militant left-wing group called the French 75 (which seems to be loosely based on the Weather Underground). Perfidia and Pat launch a number of actions including freeing immigrants from detention centers, bombing conservative candidates headquarters, and other militant actions while continuing their love affair. At the same time, though, Perfidia is literally sleeping with the enemy and carrying on an affair with a corrupt and racist military officer named Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn).
After Pat and Perfidia have a child named Charlene, Perfidia is involved in a bank robbery where she ends up having to kill a guard. After being captured, she cuts a deal with Colonel Lockjaw to land her in witness protection (which she subsequently escapes). Pat and Charlene escape and assume new identities as Bob and Willa Furgeson, and for 16 years they live in peace. But when Charlene, now Willa (Chase Infiniti) is 16 years old, Lockjaw, who has now joined a secret society of white supremecists called the Christmas Adventurers, realizes he must now do something about Perfidia’s daughter who may be his own interracial child. So he launches a manhunt to track down Bob and Willa as the two flee him in a high-octane chase.
The movie was an action-packed rollercoaster, yet it managed to not get too bloody or excessively violent. But the truly revolutionary aspect of the film came from the fact that the left-wing militants were depicted as heroes while the government officials were oppressive, racist, and just genuinely evil. Sean Penn puts in a knockout performance as the film’s villain; he really makes himself out to be a truly disgusting and despicable man.
Leonardo DiCaprio is an actor I’m very neutral on. He’s put in some great performances in his life that I really respect (The Aviator, Catch Me If You Can) and some that I think are highly overrated (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Killers of the Flower Moon). DiCaprio puts on a solid performance in this film, but I really think it was the script, more than his performance of it, that made the film compelling.
One of the few plot threads I didn’t love was the character of Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), who is Willa’s karate sensei who also happens to be running an underground railroad of sorts for Latino immigrants. His character seems a little too willing to help Pat/Bob get away from the authorities pursuing him and seems to ask very few questions in the process. It just so happens that Sergio is a revolutionary of sorts himself, which is highly convenient to the plot at just the right time when Bob needs to get away.
One Battle After Another is considered to be pretty much a lock to win the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Teyana Taylor) and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars in the current Vegas Odds*. I still haven’t seen all 10 films so I can’t comment on how deserving it is against its peers, but I’m glad to see such a quality film leading the pack in so many awards. Meanwhile, Leonardo DiCaprio is a distant second to win the Best Actor Oscar, trailing behind Timothee Chalamet who is likely to win for Marty Supreme. That seems to be pretty much the way it should be: this film was excellent, but it didn’t hinge on DiCaprio’s performance.
Rating: 93/100
One Battle After Another is now streaming on HBO Max.
*I use the Vegas odds in my Road to the Oscars reviews to give us an idea of what the odds are of who will win what. I want to make it clear that betting on the Oscars is illegal in Colorado and OFM does not condone illegal gambling.
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