Bob and his young daughter, Willa, have been hiding from the authorities for a long, long while. Now those authorities are catching up to them. Meanwhile, movie viewers have their own problems to deal with, including some ooky sexual content, violence and a whole raft of foul language.
Fatherhood ain’t for the weak.
That’s especially true for single fathers. And fathers of headstrong teen girls. And fathers on the government’s most wanted list.
Yep, Bob Ferguson knows.
Sure, it’s been years since Bob’s blown up a building. His time in the homegrown terrorist group French 75 was long, long ago—so long, in fact, he barely remembers half of it. (Well, maybe that’s more a product of his habitual drug abuse, but still.)
But the U.S. government apparently holds a grudge. And that’s left Bob cooped up in nowheresville, toking away what’s left of his brain cells.
But Bob’s time in the French 75 didn’t just produce a very, very long rap sheet: It produced a daughter, as well, thanks to Bob’s liaison with the group’s notorious leader, Perfidia Beverly Hills. Motherhood wasn’t really Perfidia’s thing. So after giving birth, she handed the baby girl over to Bob while she kept fighting the “revolution.” Hey, it’s not like those banks are going to rob themselves.
Alas, as anyone from Focus on the Family could tell you, kids do best with a mother and a father. Bob finds that he’s way out of his depth with this parenting thing, so it’s almost by accident that his daughter, Willa, grows into a bright, confident, resourceful teen who loves high school, respects her teachers and absorbs knowledge like a sponge.
Perfidia would be so disappointed.
The one major sore spot in Willa’s life? Her dad. Bob is drunk half the time and stoned the other half. He’s crazy paranoid, and he’s only getting crazier and paranoider. Why, Bob won’t even let Willa have a phone! Can you blame Willa for sneaking out and buying one anyway?
Don’t answer that, because we don’t have time to mull such questions. Col. Steven J. Lockjaw and his league of extraordinarily loyal lackeys are closing in on Bob and Willa. For Lockjaw, this particular manhunt is personal. And judging how he’s treated former French 75 members in the past, it’ll likely be lethal, too.
[Warning: Spoilers are contained in the following sections.]
Strip away most of the movie’s trappings—Lockjaw and his extralegal military operations; Perfidia and her extremist fellow travelers; a racist, Illuminati-like shadow organization; its musings on immigration, liberalism, fascism and a few other -isms—and we have a rather simple, sweet story. It’s about a father, a daughter and the lengths one will go to save the other.
Also (with tongue slightly in cheek): While Bob may never earn a “World’s Best Dad” coffee mug, he does successfully keep Willa’s screen time under control. And if Willa had obeyed her father’s “no phone” edict, she might’ve been much safer—and the movie might’ve been much shorter. (Note, though: Bob’s draconian lockdown on technology, and Willa’s ability to ignore her dad’s rules, offer a cautionary warning to parents, too.)
Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson seems to have a lot he’d like to say in One Battle After Another. And religion appears to be one of his primary points of interest.
Lockjaw is seeking admittance into the very exclusive (and wildly racist) Christmas Adventurers Club. This league of American politicians and leaders greet each other by saying “Hail St. Nick” and take their leave with “May St. Nick be with you.”
We need not read extra meaning into this, of course. But one could take the Christmas Adventurers as an extreme satirical jab at a politically powerful brand of faith-based conservatism: Anderson may be suggesting that politically active conservatives have forsaken the real Jesus for an Americanized, nostalgic cultural creation.
Who understands the “real” Jesus? Everyone else, but perhaps most especially undocumented immigrants and those who help them, the film suggests.
We’re introduced to Sergio St. Carlos, a local martial arts instructor who seems to play a huge role in shepherding the undocumented population in this “sanctuary city.” As Lockjaw tries to clamp down on the town’s illegal immigrants, Sergio swiftly spirits them away from Lockjaw’s clutches. And everywhere Sergio goes (including one impressive single-shot take), crosses adorn the walls and stand atop bookcases. He appears to mutter a prayer over a rifle he gives to Bob.
The film views churches as places of would-be sanctuary. Sergio leads his own flock to a church (a banner of Christ and His followers hangs in the space). Old members of French 75 whisk Willa to a rather unorthodox abbey, as well. Someone crudely says that it’s home to nuns who grow marijuana. Several of those nuns show up on camera in full habits, but one indeed seems to smoke marijuana. Another nun appears to try to cleanse a space by burning sage.
The commune’s worship space is the setting for a confrontation featuring Lockjaw. The sparse trappings of the sanctuary are the movie’s way of underlining, perhaps, Lockjaw’s lack of real spirituality, as if he’s holding court in an empty tomb of a church.
Perfidia’s mother wears a cross around her neck. We see a street sign that reads “Gracie’s Crossing,” and the spiritual tang of both words likely no accident. Someone marvels about how people so often “swear to God” while they’re lying through their teeth.
Perfidia seems sexually drawn to violence. (She even says, in extraordinarily crude terms, that sex itself is not “fun” compared to shooting guns.) She meets Bob during an assault on an immigration camp: In the aftermath, and after Bob impresses Perfidia with his skills with explosives, the two sloppily kiss. She gets incredibly turned on as Bob talks about how to handle blaster caps. (The conversation leads to a deeply sensual scene.) After and sometimes even during terrorist attacks, Perfidia begs Bob for sex, leading to some very hurried encounters. (Nothing critical is ever shown, but the conversations can be raw.)
Perfidia has several intimate encounters with Lockjaw, too. When they first meet, the two of them have a crudely suggestive encounter. Lockjaw subsequently seeks her out—promising her that he won’t interfere in her terrorist activities as long as she gives him sexual gratification (which involves Perfidia as the aggressor). In a hotel encounter between the two, the film strongly and disturbingly suggests a loaded gun is being used as a sex toy.
The result of Perfida’s multiple partners is that Willa’s paternity is in question. That’s a potential issue for Lockjaw, given that he’s seeking admittance to the virulently racist Christmas Adventurers. Asked point-blank by members whether he’s had any “interracial relationships,” Lockjaw says no, despite the fact that Perfida is Black. But he knows that Willa just might be evidence to the contrary. And when members of the Christmas Adventurers hear rumors of Lockjaw’s relationship with Perfidia (and his potential relationship to Willa), they make a number of crude, racist comments.
We hear some ribald conversations and incredibly suggestive names/nicknames. Outfits reveal some skin. Couples kiss. One of Willa’s friends identifies as non-binary, and Bob quizzes her about whether the friend goes by “he or her or they”. (That mustachioed, makeup-wearing character gets some screentime, too.) When Willa heads off to a dance with friends, Bob threatens the driver of the car (whom Bob assumes is Willa’s secret boyfriend). “Whatever you do to my daughter,” he says, “I’m going to do to your whole family.” Lockjaw ogles a woman’s rear-end through a set of binoculars.
Several people are shot and killed: Some get gunned down with a bit of blood spatter, and some resulting corpses can be covered in the stuff. In another scene, a character survives a horrific gunshot wound: We see him from a distance, his face covered in blood. An off-camera shootout leads to several fatalities.
The terrorist group French 75 blows up buildings and transformer towers. They also own plenty of guns, and they use them to rob banks, free immigrants from locked centers and threaten law enforcement. For the most part, its members try to steer clear of hurting anyone. But in one instance, Perfidia apparently shoots, and likely kills, a security officer off camera.
Characters engage in a car chase that leads to a jarring wreck. In another scene, terrorists flee a heist gone wrong, leading to traffic accidents and damage. Another vehicle careens off the side of the road; one character later finds a bloody body in the SUV. Somone dies from gas poisoning. Someone tries to escape a cloud of tear gas. (He only partially succeeds.) We see a corpse in a crematorium chamber. Someone falls from a rooftop and through a tree; he tree branches help to break his fall, but he still lands painfully on the ground 40 feet below. Several characters love firing guns for whatever reason is at hand. A character is knocked out of a car.
An assassin refuses to kill an adolescent; the teen is then transported to an apparent militia group that has no such qualms. (A militia member preps a boat, presumably to drop either the victim or the corpse into a nearby lake.)
During what had been a peaceful demonstration, someone throws a Molotov cocktail between protestors and the police, leading to use of tear gas and a more violent confrontation.
The Molotov cocktail thrower, by the way, was a plant from Lockjaw’s forces, which brings us to an important point: Lockjaw and the soldiers and police apparently under his command act with apparent carte blanche. They shoot and kill people without a thought of bringing them in for legal due process. They threaten family members. They often operate well outside the bounds of law as we might understand it, but in the world of One Battle After Another, Lockjaw’s operations seem to have tacit government approval.
About 135 f-words and more than 25 s-words. We also hear “a–,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “h—,” “p-ssy,” “d-ck” and “pr-ck.” God’s name is misused nearly 20 times, almost all of which come with the word “d–n” attached.”
Characters, mostly members of the Christmas Adventurers, use a variety of offensive racial slurs.
Bob has several painfully humorous interactions on what’s essentially a terrorist hotline. When the guy on the other end asks for the password, Bob admits he can’t remember: “I have abused drugs and alcohol for the last 30 years!” he says by way of excuse.
Taken alone, that makes One Battle After Another practically a public service announcement for an anti-drug campaign.
Alas, one cannot take it alone. Bob is the movie’s hero, and we see him drink and smoke marijuana (in plenty of different forms) before and after this conversation. Reform is not within Bob’s nature, apparently. And even though Bob is Willa’s father, it can feel as though Willa is Bob’s exasperated caretaker. When Willa asks Bob why he came home so late, he says he was at a bar with some old buddies. When she asks how he got home, Bob says, “I know how to drink and drive, honey.”
Bob and Sergio are both drinking, and Sergio is driving, when a pair of police officers spot the two speeding down the road. Sergio finishes off his beer quickly and asks for Bob to hide the can in his backpack: Bob follows suit with his own can of beer. When the police finally pull Sergio over and ask if he’s been drinking, he admits that he’s had a few beers.
As noted, nuns at a nearby compound apparently raise and certainly smoke marijuana. (We see one in the act.)
A very pregnant Perfidia seems to be under the influence of something while hanging out with terrorist friends around a campfire. “It’s like she doesn’t even know she’s pregnant,” Bob gripes. Lockjaw smokes and chews cigars. He cracks down on illegal immigrants in Willa’s hometown, using drug production as a pretext. (He says that undocumented workers are distributing heroin—a charge that it’s doubtful he believes.) Characters consume wine and beer.
We see an overhead lamp emblazoned with a beer brand. The French 75 takes its name from a cocktail (which, in turn, was named after a World War I-era weapon).
After Willa is born, Bob encourages Perfidia to embrace her new role as mother. She’s having none of it: “I put myself first,” she says—suggesting that even the concept of family is artificial and antiquated.
Perfidia threatens a pro-life politician over the phone.
When police finally capture Perfidia, Lockjaw offers to let her into the witness protection program if she tells him that she loves him … and if she spills the names of everyone involved in French 75. She does both, which leads to several of her comrades getting killed. She’s labeled a “rat” by most of the survivors, though Bob lies to Willa, telling his daughter that Perfidia is both dead and a hero. Lockjaw seems to court Perfidia when she’s in a witness-protection program—taking a bouquet of flowers to her supposedly secret residence, for instance.
French 75 seems a bit unfocused in its aims, violently taking on issues related to immigration, abortion and capitalism. Throughout the movie, people talk about seeing the same revolutionist spark in Willa. And by the end of the film, we do see her run off to participate in a protest somewhere—but presumably with peaceful, not violent, intentions.
When Paul Thomas Anderson makes a movie, Hollywood reserves a seat for him at the Oscars.
The writer/director has never won an Academy Award. But he and his films have been nominated for bushels of them. One Battle After Another, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, will surely follow suit.
But while the movie’s craftsmanship is beyond question, its questionable content is another matter.
Anderson’s films, as lauded as they are, can leave me feeling a bit cold. His work is easy to appreciate, but harder to love. That’s partly because he often examines such unlovable characters. He doesn’t ask us to embrace his protagonists. He doesn’t even care if we understand them. He simply hands us their stories and lets us take from them what we will.
One Battle After Another gives us uncharacteristically likeable people to root for: Willa and Bob, her totally flummoxed but ultimately well-meaning father.
But that in and of itself is an issue. After all, Bob spent his youth blowing up buildings. He’s spent the time since smoking weed to the point of self-annihilation. Willa grew up idolizing her mother: Did she know that Perfidia was a killer? Perhaps not. But she certainly knew that she was a violent, wanted activist.
And then we come to the cartoonish Lockjaw and his legion of oh-so-willing killers, all working under the auspices of the United States flag. They are the villains here. The movie—as funny and insightful and artistic as it can be—feeds Perfidia’s way of thinking. It’s us vs. them. If you plant a bomb, you’re one of us. If you carry a badge, you’re one of them.
Given the polarized age in which we live, where demonization of the “other side” seems to be the order of the day, I’m not sure if that’s the most helpful of messages.
Add to that the twisted sexual tensions in play, the blood and violence we see and the strong language we hear, One Battle After Another makes this a hard watch that isn’t fit for children and even adults should consider with care.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
