Note: spoilers follow, so be well warned.
I was so proud of myself, having mostly avoided spoilers and even knowing what One Battle After Another was about. I knew that Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest was a critical sensation, and I was primed to find out what the fuss was about.
There are pieces of the movie that are outstanding.
PTA is a consummate filmmaker, so the look and feel of the movie is specific and meticulous. Leonardo DiCaprio is an outstanding actor, or so Captain Obvious tells me, but I don’t think we’ve ever seen him quite so vulnerable as Bob Ferguson. Which is to say it’s a terrific performance. And likewise, Benicio del Toro is zanily fun as Sergio St. Carlos while Chase Infiniti is a standout as Willa (and she’s also great in the Presumed Innocent TV adaptation from 2024).
But from the opening sequence in the movie, I knew something was off about how I felt about it. And by the time the end credits rolled, I deeply felt that I fundamentally didn’t enjoy the movie.
The first thing that didn’t click with me was Perfidia (Teyana Taylor) and Col. Lockjaw’s (Sean Penn) weird sexual attraction to one another. “Weird sexual attraction” is not necessarily a problem for me per se, but in this case I couldn’t locate the emotional or psychological logic behind it. Or in plainer language: why the hell were they intensely – nearly comically – drawn to one another, this Black revolutionary activist and this taciturn racist asshole colonel?
That disconnect bled into the rest of the movie for me as I realized that I hadn’t really emotionally connected with any of the characters in a fundamental way.
Who are these revolutionary types, and what are they hoping to accomplish? What made Bob a revolutionary in the first place? Is the French 75 specifically interested in immigration policy, or are they more “let’s blow it all up and then figure out what’s next”?
I’m not interested in an intricate map and treatise to answer all of those questions, but from what we saw on screen, not knowing more about these characters and their motivations left me feeling distracted and even restless.
So that’s one challenge, but perhaps you’re thinking okay bro, couldn’t you just kick back and enjoy the blast of a ride with this flick?
Well, maybe I could have, but the bigger issue – my battle with One Battle After Another, so to speak – is that I find political violence nauseating, particularly in this case where there seems to be no rationale except for “people in charge = bad” or more simply viva la revolucion?
This reaction ties to my feelings when people allude to or even joke about “taking out” political leaders on social media and elsewhere. I “get” the anger part – I feel it too, especially in this dark age of Trump 2.0 – but I also feel with every fiber of my being that creating a culture where the possibility of violence being justified leads to every kind of bad place that we don’t want to be as a society and as a culture and as a democracy.
By the time the second half of this very long – two hours and 42 minutes – movie arrives, we’re mostly into full-on action mode, long sequences involving car chases and driving. Or chase-y chase-y time, as I like to think of it. Because of the reasons I mentioned above, and the fact that I’m not much of an action fan for its own sake these days – though I reserve the right to be dazzled by action when it’s used surprisingly and specifically, Barry comes to mind here – I was mostly tuned out by the time the end credits rolled.
Am I just a curmudgeon wildly out of tune with the zeitgeist, I asked myself? Or am I really just more of a “TV guy” these days?
The TV shows, like Mad Men and Game of Thrones, and movies, like Goodfellas and Adventureland, I love most are worlds that you can live inside of, that feel fully formed, and are about systems that reveal themselves slowly over time. They show us how things “really worked” in the ‘60s on Madison Avenue, how true allies are few and far between on GoT outside of family, and how the glamor and rules-free gangster life belies a soul-corroding existence.
Then I started thinking about Succession, one of my favorite TV shows of all time and one that’s both deeply political in some respects and packed with seemingly “unlikable” characters. It’s also consistently hilarious, which helps, but it has a diabolical way of making you care and even “root” for its roster of unlikable characters.
And when they end up doing truly vile things – such as when Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin) blithely tries to put his thumb on the scale to ensure the presidential candidate he favored would win – it’s all the more crushing for it.
Sure, television allows for more space, more run time, to let you in so that you can see characters revealing themselves over time, but the best movies do that effectively and in shorthand equally as well.
For some and perhaps even many of you reading these words, you’ll strongly counterargue that One Battle is one of the “best movies.” And for you, you’ll be right. But I hope that I’ve made a credible defense here as to why I couldn’t get there.
I didn’t like how much I didn’t like One Battle After Another, frankly.
Ultimately, it revealed something about how I view the world, what I care about, and what I want out of art.
I don’t need movies or TV shows to offer solutions. But I do need to care about what I’m watching, and to believe that the stakes and consequences matter.