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Paul Thomas Anderson’s⁢ ‘One ⁢Battle After Another’: A ⁢deep Dive

If The⁤ Dude – Jeff Bridges’ dressing-gown-wearing, weed-smoker from‍ The Big Lebowski – was a former revolutionary, then you might have something akin⁢ to Leonardo DiCaprio‘s⁢ character Bob Ferguson in One Battle After Another. The new film from Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, There Will Be Blood) is a wild, propulsive and funny-as-hell tale of activists-in-hiding “inspired” by⁢ Vinelandthe 1990 novel by Thomas Pynchon.

Anderson’s second adaptation of the mysterious American author, following⁤ 2014’s stoner detective yarn Inherent Viceis a looser take, updated from the 1980s to contemporary times. But the Pynchon pot-addled paranoia remains, hanging over this trenchant look at a divided America. Along the way, we’ll meet marijuana-growing nuns, a cabal of ‍’Christian⁤ Adventurers’ and, in his best role in years, Sean Penn as an‍ unhinged militia head.

The story ⁤starts⁤ at the Otay Mesa Detention Center ⁢in San Diego where radical vigilante ⁣group The French 75 are out ⁣to free detainees.Leading the charge is Ferguson and his lover Perfidia beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), even though musician alana haim – star of ⁢Anderson’s last film, Licorice Pizza – ‍and rapper Shayna⁣ McHayle AKA Junglepussy are also in on the liberating action. “This ⁢is⁢ some Set It Off shit”, she yells during one raid, a nod to Queen Latifah‘s 1996 bank robbery tale.

Before‍ long, Penn’s Col.‍ Steven J. Lockjaw has Perfidia arrested and strong-armed into ratting on the group.⁤ After going into witness protection,she disappears‍ – leaving Bob and their ⁢young baby daughter behind. Fast-forward 16 years and Bob is hunkered down in the fictional town of Baktan Cross,addled by booze⁢ and drugs. His daughter Willa (Chase infiniti)⁢ is now in her teens, ⁤tolerating her father’s fears – which ⁤become all too real when Lockjaw, ⁢determined to stop the spread of “uncontrolled migration”,‍ picks up the trail to hunt Bob down.