The summer of 2008 was a humid and densely populated Delhi. Some first-year English literature students had the brilliant idea to start a film club.
The scene was set: Six of us were crammed into a university flat that looked like an abandoned broom closet, just the kind you’d see on bleak BBC documentaries about student life.
We barely fitted in the place, but that didn’t really matter. Our plan was clear. We didn’t have taste yet, or at least we hadn’t tried it. Somebody, in the midst of piles of DVDs, and beer cans that had been repurposed as ashtrays by half-sober people, suggested The Big Lebowski. I hadn’t heard of it.
Jeff Bridges and the Coen Brothers were as unknown to me as vegan sausage roll.
What was my movie knowledge back then? It’s best described as Shah Rukh Khan centric Bollywood with lots of romance and melodrama.
It was a screening with mediocre expectations, and vague hopes for the production company. A friend shuffled into the bathroom somewhere in the middle, perhaps just after the rug incident.
He was immediately yelled at by his fellows. Sit down. Watch. Watch. This was my first lesson in cult film: The Dude is a master at converting people.
We tried to sign up for Religion of Dudeism, even though we were confused by the story. (Look it up. It’s true). The mix of mystery, irreverence and cool was so enthralling that it lasted long after the film had ended.
Now, fast-forward. It’s now a much nicer flat in London. ( Thank God there is actual furniture).
I’m not sure if my “Dude” phase has retired or not. The Rickety Bathrobe Mode is still alive, at least weekends.
The trailer to Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another appears like lightning. Leonardo DiCaprio’s slouching posture onscreen instantly takes me back to my college days.
It’s the gait, bathrobe and unhurried chaos that make Dude so distinctive.
The result is a mixture of homage and reinvention, with an Anderson creation that’s both farce and thriller. It was brewed to address the fears of the present, but the fermenting took place in the irreverence from generations past.
Americana Reborn: Anderson’s chaos battlefield
Anderson, like many filmmakers, is not one to shy away from his own brand.
One Battle After Another is an entertaining and witty satire that combines action and satire with the same thin thread of hope as well as the strong one of desperation.
Opening sequences are unnerving. The French 75 revolution crew, with a name like cocktail that stings, is rushing through the border in order to free migrants held at a US/Mexico facility.
This scene is bursting with Andersonian energy: high-octane hilarity colliding with grim reality. Teyana Taylor’s Perfidia Beverly Hills goes toe-totoe against Sean Penn’s Colonel Lockjaw, a pair so unlikely yet so electrifying.
One Battle After Another is a film that, in spite of its high energy level, feels like it’s on the verge of collapsing. It’s a reflection of the fractured nation psyche, and chaos caused by too many breaking news stories.
The film is visually stunning, with wide shots that make the helter skelter chases seem both epic and cramped ( there are times when your head may spin a little).
The most striking thing is the fatigue. Every skirmish seems like it’s the last and every victory feels short-lived.
DiCaprio’s unlikely transformation
Anderson has a stacked cast, but Leonardo DiCaprio is the one who brings it all together.
His character, Bob Ferguson is a faded revolutionist now lost in the fog that comes with being a single dad. His greatest weapon was a bathrobe made of terrycloth, and his deepest moments were shared over a breakfast meal with his daughter.
DiCaprio’s performance is not high-strung; rather, we get to see him in “slouch” mode where cleverness and defeat are mixed together.
Never out, he’s just behind. Behind the plot or behind in sleep.
DiCaprio’s Bob is memorable because of this human side, which has been masked by a comical veneer.
Even when jokes are flying fast, the heartbreak remains real. He was once a man that changed history. Now he just wants to keep his daughter alive and survive the fallout. The day’s goals are modest but deeply relatable.
Anderson does not give us a heroic character but rather a survivor. We root for characters like The Dude because they are a bit of us and a bit everyone.
Enter Chase Infiniti, Willa. She is the heartbeat of the movie, providing tension and warmth without ever veering into cliché. This father-daughter relationship is a mix of tenderness and dysfunction that gives the film a sense of urgency.
This film, in its essence, is about our legacy and battles within the family that never end.
The ensemble is a rollicking one
DiCaprio is not the only actor who can carry One Battle After Another. Sean Penn’s Lieutenant Colonel Lockjaw, played by Sean Penn, is an absolute revelation. He is frightening, pitiful, contradictory, and brimming over with contradiction. He flirts with cartoon villainy, but pulls away from it. You want to hate Lockjaw but you can’t.
Benicio del Toro plays the sardonic sensei and provides comic relief, while also bringing a bit of lightness to scenes of high tension. Teyana Taylor’s Perfidia has a leadership that is both stoic and sly. It’s also sharply humorous.
The secondary cast–revolutionaries, militia thugs, politicos–are never throwaways. Anderson instead gives the characters nuance and fleshes out their absurd beliefs, with a wink or a punch.
It is the result of a carefully sustained chaos: satire, without preaching, and hope amid mistakes and missed opportunities.
Sounds and sights
Anderson’s technical abilities are at their peak. Jonny Greenwood’s score pound and propel, keeping the pace urgent even when the story sprawls. VistaVision cinematography produces jarring changes, transforming pastoral calm to urban madness within an instant. It’s not just visual, but visceral and sometimes dreamlike.
Anyone who loves action will not want more. The action is a whirlwind of car chases and close-quarters combat, with every frame vibrating in anticipation. Anderson does not succumb to a showy spectacle. Instead, every set feels like an actual vignette with accident and intent interwoven.
It’s all about the tone. A delicate balancing act that shouldn’t work but actually does.
Chaos is comforting because of its absurdity, and the laughter sharper due to the terror beneath. Anderson refuses to be defined by any genre, and makes a movie that is unpredictable, funny, grim and completely captivating.
Everything in between: Resistance, Hope, and All That’s In Between
One Battle After Another, when you peel back the layers, is a meditation about resistance. What does it mean to fight?
Bob’s story shows us the frustration and exhaustion of anyone who has tried to change the status quo.
Anderson is interested in themes such as fatherhood, family found, and how exhausting it can be to keep going round after round. Perfidia, as both a rival and an ally of Bob, and their tangled relation, ground a whirlwind story. The film relies on the connections between Bob and Willa to give direction in an age of blurred boundaries.
Anderson’s most daring gamble
This Anderson film has echoes that are similar to Inherent Vice, but it is more dynamic, biting and, ultimately, better attuned with today’s pulsating pace. The paranoia is traded for action, nostalgia for resilience and sentimentality, while the humour becomes more hard won.
It’s not the chaos that will tire viewers. Nor is it the sudden tonal shifts. Anderson is not interested in comforting us, but rather keeping our attention.
Aftershocks
One Battle After Another doesn’t make for an easy watch. The violence in the film is often unsettling, yet always urgent.
Comedy is able to cut through the heartbreak. In the end what is offered is not a simple resolution, but rather a complex kinship – an understanding that pushing forward and fighting for one more hour is a victory in itself.
Anderson and DiCaprio’s performance is more than a tribute. It is a testimony to the need for hope, survival and irreverence.
One Battle After Another will be a shock to those who are tired of the comforting cinema. It is an absurd and wise mouthful.
For every person who has ever been shushed by a movie like The Big Lebowski it is a reminder of how movies can sometimes make people reluctant saints or unexpected believers.
The UK will release One Battle After Another in cinemas starting September 26.
The post One Battle After Another: DiCaprio’s Wildest Ride across Anderson’s Fragmented USA will be updated as new information becomes available.
This site is for entertainment only. Click here to read more
