{"id":190313,"date":"2025-10-04T21:52:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T21:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/190313\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T21:52:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T21:52:15","slug":"one-battle-after-another-paul-thomas-andersons-latest-film-already-eyed-for-oscar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/190313\/","title":{"rendered":"One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, already eyed for Oscar"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just one week after release, Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another has shot to the top of Gold Derby’s Oscar Best Picture predictions<\/a>, buoyed by glowing critical reviews.<\/p>\n

One Battle After Another might be the most literal title for a film released this year, both in terms of feeling while watching the film and what it means in the larger ecosystem of state-aided violence.<\/p>\n

The sprawling adventure, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, leaves nary a moment for the audience to catch their breath as Anderson’s camera careens behind ex-member of revolutionary group the French 75\/current burnout Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) as he tries to reunite with his kidnapped daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti).<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Bob and Willa go off-grid after Perfidia disappears. (Supplied: Warner Bros)<\/p>\n

Willa has been in harm’s way since she was still in the womb of her mother, French 75 member Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), who is seen gleefully emptying the clip of an automatic weapon resting on her swollen belly.<\/p>\n

A prelude shows Perfidia blowing up the offices of anti-abortion politicians and setting asylum seekers free from detention centres, helped by Bob’s explosive experience.<\/p>\n

Perfidia’s incendiary actions attract the ire and eye of straight-laced Colonel Stephen Lockjaw (Sean Penn), who blackmails her into a sexual relationship.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Although Colonel Lockjaw is the film’s “bad guy”, Anderson still affords him some empathy. (Supplied: Warner Bros)<\/p>\n

Sixteen years later, his potential fathering of Willa is the only thing standing in the way of Lockjaw’s acceptance into white supremacist organisation the Christmas Adventurers Club (CAC).<\/p>\n

Lockjaw is prepared to use every weapon in the military’s arsenal (including concocting falsified immigration raids) to ensure he has a clean slate to present the CAC.<\/p>\n

Supporting Bob’s desperate dash are Sergio St Carlos (Benicio Del Toro), Willa’s karate sensei, who is harbouring refugees in a “Latino Harriet Tubman situation”; and Deandra (Regina King), a former French 75er.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Deandra (Regina King) attempts to help Willa (Chase Infiniti) after word gets out Lockjaw is after her. (Supplied: Warner Bros)<\/p>\n

If this sounds like a lot, that’s because it is, by Anderson’s specific design. It’s all right there in the title.<\/p>\n

“I thought that phrase [One Battle After Another] was very evocative,” Anderson tells The Screen Show’s Jason Di Rosso.<\/p>\n

“Whether you stub your toe in the morning, or you get bad news from the newspaper, or your kids don’t want to get out of bed, or to larger scale things; it’s really the daily battles of life that can get us.”Substitute heroes<\/p>\n

Despite DiCaprio, clad in a red check dressing gown and shades, becoming the unofficial mascot of the film, Anderson keeps audiences guessing as to who is the real protagonist.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

“[Leonardo DiCaprio] can give you a fluctuation of emotions within a second that not many people can,” Anderson says. (Supplied: Warner Bros)<\/p>\n

“We have a first act that’s very chock full of a lot of stuff but what we’re left with at the end of that first act is a broken-hearted man who’s got a baby,” Anderson says.<\/p>\n

“We jump into the main body of the movie, and \u2026 I think you’re seeing somebody who is the child in a relationship with their daughter. But he’s kind of still holding on to the idea that he’s supposed to take care of her.”<\/p>\n

Willa isn’t the only one tasked with putting her father on the right track. After his daughter’s disappearance, Bob rockets around his sanctuary city trying to wrench the long-forgotten codes he needs to obtain the coordinates of his daughter out of his drug-addled mind.<\/p>\n

Set on the right path by Sergio, nurses, skateboarders and other everyday citizens emerge to help Bob as Lockjaw’s immigration raids accelerate into military-encouraged warfare.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Bob goes to the cool-headed Sensei Sergio (Benicio Del Toro) for help after Willa is kidnapped. (Supplied: Warner Bros)<\/p>\n

But even as the stiff-lipped commander destroys a city to achieve his own hate-filled goals, Anderson affords him some empathy.<\/p>\n

“He might be our bad guy but I feel for him. There’s definitely an absurdity to him,” Anderson says.<\/p>\n

“He’s a deeply conflicted fellow who clearly is not sure what side to be on and, maybe he deserved it, but he got his heart broken.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think that justifies the kind of lengths he goes to. But always be afraid of a man with a broken heart who’s conflicted on the inside.”A clear vision<\/p>\n

In addition to the finger-on-the-pulse storytelling, critics have heaped praise on One Battle After Another for the clarity of its visuals.<\/p>\n

The Screen Show: Paul Thomas Anderson on One Battle After Another<\/a><\/p>\n

Cult American filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson\u00a0directs One Battle After Another,\u00a0in which Leonardo DiCaprio leads an action thriller about a washed-up radical living off-grid with his spirited young daughter, who goes missing.<\/p>\n

This is, in part, thanks to Anderson shooting on VistaVision<\/a>, a wide-screen version of 35mm film that delivers a higher-resolution picture.<\/p>\n

All the rage in the 50s and 60s, VistaVision fell out of fashion for almost 60 years before 2024’s Academy Award-winning film The Brutalist brought about its revival.<\/p>\n

In addition to One Battle After Another, Yorgos Lanthimos’s upcoming Burgonia and Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights adaptation also utilise VistaVision.<\/p>\n

“It’s just really become, through the kind of refurbishing that’s been done by private collectors here, a much more viable camera to use in a day-to-day way,” he says.<\/p>\n

“It gives you an incredibly large, negative, beautiful image. It can kind of be like a French Connection-type of camera, or it can kind of be a big IMAX-type camera. It’s kind of very versatile in that way.”<\/p>\n

While One Battle After Another might use the hamster wheel of political violence as an evocative backdrop, Anderson says the screwball comedy of the film shines through.<\/p>\n

“There’s a dark streak within it, a kind of dark melancholy streak, but hopefully the top layer is something that is an enjoyable film.”<\/p>\n

One Battle After Another is in cinemas now.<\/p>\n