Jonny Greenwood

One Battle After Another

04/10/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

We’re uncharacteristically late to this one, mostly because in its week of release we are in a camper-van in the wilds of Scotland and no cinema in that vicinity is showing it. Not complaining, you understand, people need to have holidays, but this is a film by Paul Thomas Anderson, whom I’ve held in special esteem ever since watching Boogie Nights way back in 1997. And all those ‘best film of the year’ reports make me impatient to get back to civilisation.

Mind you, I’d be the first to admit that, in recent years, PTA has (at least for me) gone off the boil a bit. Unlike many of his followers, I didn’t really care for 2017’s Phantom Thread and his last offering, 2021’s Licorice Pizza, though a warm and appealing slice of nostalgia, wasn’t the finest work from the director of There Will be Blood and (in my humble opinion) his masterpiece, Magnolia.

One Battle After Another, as the name suggests, is an action film, perhaps the last genre I’d have expected this most enigmatic of film-makers to explore but, happily, he puts his own unique spin on it, producing a sprawling, multi-faceted tale set over the best part of two decades. It’s larger than life, peopled by a series of eccentrically-named caricatures and yet, once it settles into its stride, it manages to exert a powerful grip.

We first join the action as Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), along with other members of their far-left terrorist group, French 75, launch an armed attack on a detention centre in California and free all of the captives. During the action, Perfidia encounters the unit’s commanding officer, Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), and – in a move intended to humiliate him – makes him masturbate at gunpoint. However, this only causes him to fixate on her, something that will have inevitable consequences further down the line.

Pat and Perfidia become partners, but their haphazard attempts to parent their baby daughter, Willa, seem doomed to failure – especially when Perfidia is captured and forced into witness protection, and Pat is left to deal with the situation alone.

Sixteen years later, Willa (Chase Infiniti) has grown to be an independent teenager, preferring to follow the guidance of her karate instructor, Sergio (an underused Benicio Del Toro), than her drug-addled old man. Pat hasn’t been involved in any terrorist activity in years, preferring to experiment with every drug he can lay his hands on but when, out of the blue, a coded telephone call reaches him, announcing that Lockjaw (now a Colonel) is coming after Willa, he’s forced to get up off the sofa and go to her aid…

From this point, the film pretty much delivers on the promise of the title – it’s a frenetic, explosive and breathless chase filtered through cinematographer Michael Bauman’s VistaVision lenses, and backed by Jonny Greenwood’s eccentric score. Written by Anderson and loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel, Vineland, the director has reputedly been working on this project for something like 20 years so it’s remarkable that it feels as timely as it does.

DiCaprio is wonderfully endearing as the hapless Pat, desperately trying to remember passwords that he hasn’t used for far too long, while Penn, as the heinous, macho Lockjaw, is the personification of a living GI Joe action figure, a man committed to preserving his outward appearance, while inside he’s a festering, ambitious wreck. But strangely, it’s newcomer Infiniti who really impresses here as the quietly determined Willa, who, when pushed, snaps back with the stubborn tenacity she’s inherited from her mother.

One Battle After Another is a searing condemnation of contemporary America, a world where freedom has to be fought for with extreme violence, where the most cold-blooded assassins hide behind the personas of smiling, corn-fed patriots. PTA finds original ways to explore the most well-worn conventions. Even the old fall-back of the car chase is given a mesmerising makeover, as vehicles glide silently through a shimmering waterfall of desert roads like some kind of LSD-induced hallucination.

Despite a hefty running time of two hours and 41 minutes, the film flashes by in what feels like half that time and it’s clear pretty much from the outset that Paul Thomas Anderson is back on form. Whatever comes next, I’m already looking forward to it.

4.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Spencer

11/11/21

Cineworld, Edinburgh

As a rule, I tend to avoid anything to do with the royal family. I’m opposed to the very idea of a monarchy (I’d use the word ‘republican,’ but that has different connotations these days), and am genuinely bemused by the affection people feel for the current bunch of tax-guzzlers. I’ve never seen a single episode of The Crown and I don’t care one jot where Harry and Meghan live, or if they’ve stopped performing ‘royal duties.’ I do think that Prince Andrew should be held to account for his actions – like anyone else accused of a crime – but that’s another story.

Suffice to say, I’m not drawn to this movie because it’s about Diana. Of course her death was a tragedy; that’s indisputable. Of course the monarchy made her life miserable; that seems indisputable too. But I never engaged in the national pastime of adoring her, nor in the national outpouring of grief at her demise. Hers was a distant story, about someone I didn’t know.

No, the truth is, I’m drawn to this movie because of the casting. I’m a big fan of Kristen Stewart (her performances in Certain Women, Seberg and Personal Shopper are all stellar), and the supporting roles are populated by the great and the good too: to wit, Timothy Spall as baleful equerry Major Alistar Gregory, and Sally Hawkins as Diana’s dresser, Maggie. The trailer is enticing; my interest is piqued.

The premise is simple: it’s Christmas. Like many a family, the royals gather to spend it together. Unlike many other families, they have a plethora of palaces to choose from, and an army of underlings to ensure everything runs smoothly (said underlings, it goes without saying, can’t enjoy the festive season with their own families). So many underlings, in fact, that it’s stultifying, and it’s easy to see why Diana feels trapped and claustrophobic. Even her tiniest transgressions are noted, reported and duly addressed; the traditions are set in stone, and she has no option but to conform.

Although this film is fiction, truth shines through it: the stifling atmosphere is almost palpable. Director Pablo Larrain depicts an inflexible institution; Diana is expected to mask her mental health problems – not just from the outside world, but also from her family, in the home that is so blatantly not hers. Her inability to do this is seen as wilful, as if depression and bulimia can just be wished away. This is a family so out of touch it’s painful. (Obliging a woman with an eating disorder to undergo a humiliating ceremonial weighing to ensure she’s eaten enough Christmas dinner. Really?) Maybe I do care a little bit about where Harry and Meghan live. As far away from this toxic environment as possible, I hope.

Stewart is luminous in this role. She brings Diana to life in a credible, relatable way. She’s fragile, but there’s a strong core: a survival instinct that compels her to rebel. Jonny Greenwood’s score is wonderful: the discordant piano adding to the sense of confinement. In contrast, the final, glorious rendition of All I Need is a Miracle is a breath of fresh air in an open-top car, away from the suffocating velvet curtains, stitched shut.

The people’s princess isn’t sanctified here – we see the carelessness her privilege affords her (wrecking the feast the kitchen staff have prepared for the next day; refusing carefully prepared treats from those who care for her; recalling staff from their holidays; asking the police to lie for her), but she is humanised. She’s presented as essentially sweet-natured, but flawed, as are we all. There’s a montage of memories that takes us from a little girl practising ballet, by way of a nervous bride to a woman running for her life. It’s devastating. I find myself on the edge of my seat, rooting for her, willing her to escape that gilded cage.

And, for a few short years, she did.

4.3 stars

Susan Singfield