Any audience member exhausted by the political sloganeering of the real world will find no solace in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. There is temporary respite, perhaps, in some of its kinetic, well-crafted set pieces. But overall, the fatigue suggested by the film’s title might begin to set in the more we hear about the ideological commitments of our characters.
Getting high on this type of revolutionary supply can also plausibly be argued to be irresponsible or at least ill-timed.
One of the great things about movies is how they can help us imagine the lives of people who are different from ourselves. The real challenge here is getting the audience to seriously invest in a group of people who are part Marxist revolutionaries, part Black Power, and part paramilitary terrorist cell. This is not an impossible challenge, but it will depend on the tone struck in the presentation of this faction existing somewhere between the Weather Underground and the Black Liberation Army.
Paul Thomas Anderson sees the potential for family everywhere, most notably beyond immediate kinship. From the family of pornographers in Boogie Nights (1997) to the family of believers in The Master (2012), we should be accustomed to him shining a light on familial ties in strange places. But in both of these films the compassion is offset with glimpses into the darkness of where such families can find themselves. In One Battle After Another, the implication seems to be that meathead military men, White Supremacist conspiracy theorists, and the state at large are simply in the way of a well-intentioned revolution.
This is likely to alienate a large part of its potential audience because the film assumes that the goals of the French 75, the resistance movement in which our characters are die-hard believers, have been morally agreed upon. “Free borders, free bodies, free choices” is their revolutionary credo, one that goes unexamined for the entire three hour duration. A lot (but not all) of the audience that is likely to roll their eyes at this stuff has already checked out. They may have already decided that Hollywood is ideologically hostile to them — a film like this will not bring them back.
The audience members who don’t vibe with the free borders, free bodies messaging are left in an awkward position. What does this film think of them? Well, according to the film itself, it might make them sexually repressed, insecure Fascists who secretly desire to be dominated by strong black women. In contrast to this enemy type, exemplified by the Looney Tune-named Col. Lockjaw, the French 75 movement is presented as dynamic, cool, intersectional, and with ultimately praiseworthy goals. We know this because the villains are cartoonish and the protagonists are given tonal free range, even after they engage in industrial terrorism and the murder of law enforcement.
Of course, a film does not and probably should not be made to tiptoe around everyone’s views. No film will please all people. But where is the John Milius-style version of this story? It’s hard to imagine now. This feeling of being in a cinematic holding pattern is bound to frustrate many and will potentially lead to backlash after the initial wave of critical acclaim. A foreign audience not keeping up with the hot button issues of the American culture war (the immigration dispute or anti-police sentiment as just two examples) might also find the characters and their views hard to relate to.
An intelligent audience should also expect more from such a seasoned and thoughtful filmmaker than the binary of cool revolutionaries vs. “the man.” I can imagine this being a strange viewing experience for anyone who has lived in an American town or city where protest culture, rioting, and general ideological havoc has resulted in real damage. I suspect this would not be as much of an issue if ideology played a smaller or more nuanced part in the story, but it is there in spades and about as subtle as a brick through a window.
Where is the more interesting film hiding somewhere that threatens to become more like John Ford’s The Searchers (1956)? I can sense it concealing itself in the storyline involving Col. Lockjaw’s racially-panicked paternity quest, which mirrors the racial animus of John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards. But the dramatic seriousness of this is lost when the film insists upon the so-called “Christmas Adventurers,” a fraternity of White Supremacists who make up the Deep State. Once again, where does this leave the viewer who doesn’t believe this is the root of American injustice?
Getting high on this type of revolutionary supply can also plausibly be argued to be irresponsible or at least ill-timed, especially in a climate where people of all political persuasions are getting very cavalier with their weapons. As a non-American and outsider, I can only wonder if the surprisingly uncritical revolutionary chic of One Battle After Another is really what the critics should be championing. Revolution, to invoke Raymond Aron, might in fact be the opium of the intellectuals as well as the boutique entertainment of the Hollywood glitterati.
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Robert S. Cairns is an independent film critic and ‘recovering academic’ with research interests in philosophy, theology, and conservatism in the movies. Twitter/X: x.com/robertscairns.