One Battle After Another (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2025, USA)

One Battle After Another is the latest from director Paul Thomas Anderson. One of the handful of Hollywood directors who is able to operate with a great deal of autonomy and attract top talent, Anderson’s career has shown a significant amount of depth and versatility over the years - dabbling in everything from period pieces to sprawling comedies, to his last film - the California-set autobiographical coming-of-age story Licorice Pizza. With his biggest budget yet (far north of $100M), One Battle is what could perhaps be described as Anderson’s first action film (though that is a stretch).

As with Inherent Vice, Battle finds Anderson drawing once again from literary legend Thomas Pynchon, this time 1990’s Vineland. Pynchon has an oddball universe - it is at once part of the American landscape, but operates within its own quirky space. Battle operates in a world that looks and feels very similar to our own, and the political parallels are very difficult to ignore (despite the fact that the film was written and conceived before the US’s current administration). Still, it would be inappropriate to call the film a direct reflection of life in America. If anything, it feels closer in spirit to the 60s countercultural milieu, which Pynchon is most identified with.

Despite being close to three hours, Battle is relentlessly entertaining and filled with many very broad and scene-chewing performances from - among others - Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn. Ultimately, the political aspects of the film are a kind of window-dressing for a story about a bond between a father (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his daughter (Chase Infiniti). This finds the emotional core of the film and keeps its engine humming even as some bits don’t work as strongly as others. Still, there are set pieces, including a car chase finale, which make the film worth seeing in theaters.

7/10