LOS ANGELES — Paul Thomas Anderson spent about 20 years writing “One Battle After Another.” After two decades, it’s never felt more relevant.
The epic action thriller, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s “Vineland,” hits theaters Friday. With a running time of 2 hours and 50 minutes, “One Battle After Another” wastes no time immersing audiences in its politically charged world.
The revolution will not be televised, but it will be placed at the front and center of Anderson’s film. The director isn’t there to make his audience comfortable, star Teyana Taylor says, as he zeros in on themes of immigration, racism and systemic corruption showcased at their most absurd.
“I feel like PTA calls out a lot of things that are trying to get swept under the rug,” Taylor told The Associated Press, referring to the director by his nickname. “And that’s what I respect. This is really waking, shaking and baking some s—. Like, you gotta shake the table.”
Taylor’s character, Perfidia Beverly Hills, is a member of the Weather Underground-inspired French 75 revolutionary group. From the film’s first scene, we see the French 75 take matters into their own hands, liberating undocumented detainees, destroying corrupt political offices and launching their own form of justice, one right after the other. The group is peppered with members portrayed by musicians-turned-actors like Dijon Duenas, Alana Haim, and Shayna McHayle and notable actors like Regina Hall and Wood Harris.
“I mean, this movie is based on some of the revolutionaries and anarchists of the late ’60s, the Weathermen that were fighting for civil rights, environmentalism too at the time, capitalism, Vietnam,” star Leonardo DiCaprio told the AP. “But it’s about the implosion of that too, about the extremes that people go to for their own ideology.”
DiCaprio portrays Bob Ferguson, known in the French 75’s initial scenes as Ghetto Pat, known for his knowledge of explosives and undying devotion to both Perfidia and the revolution. Together, Perfidia and Pat seem unstoppable, until the racist and xenophobic Col. Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn) sets out end the group to fuel his rise to power.
“And this is a movie, fast-forward, in today’s day and age, where you see this sort of systematic breakdown that comes from it, if it’s not done with grace and purity and consistently, the whole sort of— our revolution is dismantled and our past comes back to haunt us,” said DiCaprio. “So that’s what I love that Paul did. He shows extremity on both sides of the spectrum and how no one seems to be communicating or getting things done in the right way nowadays.”
The film jumps 16 years into the future. Perfidia has disappeared and DiCaprio’s character lives under a new alias in a sanctuary city as a paranoid, stoner dad with his teenage daughter, Willa (newcomer Chase Infiniti). Everything is seemingly mundane until Lockjaw reappears, forcing the father-daughter duo on the run.
“There’s a lot of moments where I was like, I don’t know if I’m gonna be able to do this, but thankfully I had amazing scene partners and a great support system to kind of assure me that I was here to do my job and I knew exactly that I could do it,” Infiniti said.
“One Battle After Another” is Anderson’s most expensive project to date and shot entirely in VistaVision — a decades-old format that’s been revived in recent years by movies like “The Brutalist.”
Benicio del Toro, who plays karate instructor Sensei Sergio St. Carlos, says blending improv scenes with DiCaprio and shooting in the antique format forced the actors and Anderson to have unwavering faith in each other’s decisions, knowing they only had a limited amount of takes. His character, also the head of an undocumented migrant hideaway, hopes his storyline will be an example of showcasing compassion beyond political affiliation.
“I wouldn’t be pompous enough to say movies change people. But it might just open a door that leads to another door that leads to a hallway to another door,” he said.
DiCaprio says portraying Bob Ferguson is his own version of freedom of speech, allowing him to “shine a light on certain issues about humanity and different subject matters.”
“I’m always searching for a movie that doesn’t necessarily have meaning but is thought-provoking, that holds a mirror up to who we are as a society, as people, of humanity,” said DiCaprio. “And that’s what I think the heart of this movie is, is how to find humanity in a world that is incredibly divided. … It’s not a film where there’s a specific sort of ideology that Paul is putting into it. It’s saying this is who we are, this is the world we live in.”
For Taylor, the 20-year-old script’s relevance is evidence of American history continuing to repeat itself.
“It didn’t need a change; it didn’t need to be updated because it was all still so relevant,” said Taylor. “It’s time to wake up, and it’s time to shed light on the necessary conversations.”
