🎥 Paul Thomas Anderson’s (loose) adaptation of a 1990 novel held our undivided attention for its entire 2 hour and 40 minute runtime. One Battle After Another, based on the postmodern fiction Vineland, is a gripping exploration of modern-day US politics, tackling questions of race, immigration, revolution, and counter-revolution in a mixture of action, thriller, and comedy.

What you’re in for: The film follows Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), a former revolutionary whose world collapsed when his love and comrade Perifidia (Teyana Taylor) was killed, and their group of liberal rebels forced underground. Years later, Bob has fried his brain with substances while raising his hard-headed daughter Willa (Chase Infiniti) in relative obscurity. When Colonel Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn) — a right-wing bigot who has a 15-year-old bone to pick — returns with military might to settle old scores, Bob is dragged back into the foray.

DiCaprio settles comfortably into the role of Bob, delivering a performance that balances worn-out exhaustion with flashes of his former idealistic fire. His forced return to the battlefield is nothing short of a comedic, odyssey-like triumph, as he roams the streets in his pajamas, struggling to decipher ever-changing code words and cursing historical revisionism. The fast-paced cinematography and nerve-racking score create a high-strung momentum that somehow still leaves room for moments of awe and genuine laughter.

While DiCaprio cements himself as perhaps the best working actor to play a paranoid drug-ridden character, Penn’s performance as Lockjaw nearly steals the show. His cartoonish yet chilling depiction of a troubled, uber-racist US soldier is at once terrifying and oddly charismatic, creating a villain who feels both larger-than-life and disturbingly grounded in reality.

Anderson’s works never lend themselves easily to interpretation, and this film is no exception. Beneath its political overtones, the film offers a thoughtful examination of inherent human weakness and our attempts to mask it with ideological overzealousness. Whether it’s the French 75 with their over-the-top assertions of liberal rights, or the Christmas Adventurers who worship Santa, both sides of the political aisle take themselves so seriously that they cross the line from meaningful struggle to vain, contrived territory.

The film suggests that obsession with higher ideals often leaves a trail of severed connections, embodied most poignantly in Willa, a lost and rejected offspring caught between warring factions that have forgotten what they’re really fighting for.

WHERE TO WATCH- One Battle After Another is screening at VOX Cinemas at City Center Almaza, Mall of Alexandria and Mall of Egypt, City Stars Cinema, and Scene Cinema at CFCM and District 5. The movie is also screening at Cima Arkan and P90 Cinema. Watch the trailer on YouTube (runtime: 2:39).

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