One Battle After Another

Inspired by, but not directly based on, the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, One Battle After Another is a dark comedy that feels at times like it is ripped from the pages of our country’s headlines, tackling domestic terrorism, racism, immigration, and sanctuary cities. It does this with a keen sense of humor that can be at times absurd but also within the realm of reason…sometimes. All of this is held together by a cadre of performers who are acting the heck out of roles that could easily be one-note, yet because there is so much talent behind it all, they are able to overcome that and give us some truly imaginative characters. At the top of it all is Chase Infiniti in her feature debut, showing us that she has a bright future ahead of her. Chase was an amazing find for director Paul Thomas Anderson, and while she didn’t get any Oscar attention, she did get noticed by the Critics’ Choice Awards, the Actor Awards, BAFTA, and the Golden Globes. 

One Battle After Another is, as of this writing, the film to beat at the Academy Awards this year, neck and neck with Hamnet, another nearly perfect film. What gives OBAA the advantage is how topical the subject is in American politics right now. Paul Thomas Anderson opens his film with a domestic terrorism raid of an immigrant detainment center. “Ghetto” Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), an interracial couple and members of the French 75, a far-left revolutionary group, break into the compound and set free the detainees. Perfidia captures the commanding officer, Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), and sexually humiliates him, causing him to become obsessed with her. 

He tracks her down later and blackmails her into a sexual relationship, resulting in a pregnancy that Ghetto, unaware of what Lockjaw is doing, assumes is his. After a robbery gone wrong, Perfidia is arrested but manages to disappear while under witness protection after naming names. This leaves behind Ghetto with her daughter, Charlene, who takes it on the lam under an assumed name, Bob Ferguson, disappearing from the radar and lying low. 

Flash forward sixteen years. Bob Ferguson and his daughter (Chase Infiniti) have been living off the grid in the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross, California. In the years since he fled, Bob has become paranoid and a stoner, self-medicating himself while trying to raise a daughter on his own. Willa, Charlene’s new name, has made a life for herself with friends, athletics, and academics while assuming everything her father taught her is just his paranoid delusions and not to be taken seriously. This includes lying about having a cell phone, something he strictly forbids because they can be tracked. 

Unbeknownst to either of them, Lockjaw is vying for a position with a white-supremacist group known as the Christmas Adventurers Club. Part of being invited to join is a thorough background check, and he fears that this may turn up a half-black child that he fathered with Perfida. To remedy this, he goes on the hunt for Bob and Willa, determined to prove she isn’t his and, if she is his, eliminate her. What follows is a whole lot of absurdity, some fun action set-pieces, and a complete siege on Baktan Cross under the guise of rounding up illegals and drug pushers. The remnants of the French 75 rescue Willa before she can be captured only to lose her again when Lockjaw catches up to them. The Christmas Adventurers Club sends their own man to the area when they figure out about the mixed-race child, and Bob is on the lam, bumbling his way through trying to avoid capture and attempting to find his daughter.

For years, people have been saying that Leonardo DiCaprio needed to loosen up and dress down if he wanted to finally get his Oscar. This finally happened when he quite literally did just that in The Revenant. Since then, he has gone even further down that rabbit hole by taking on some extreme characters, some that are even a bit buffoonish. This is one of those characters. When we are introduced to him, he seems competent enough, though not as motivated as the rest of the French 75. His primary motivation seems to be to please Perfida and protect her. He’s a demolitions expert, supplying the group with bombs or fireworks as part of their attacks. 

All that changes when Charlene/Willa is born. He shifts gears and goes into dad mode. But that’s not what Perfida wants, and it creates a wedge between the two. After Perfida disappears, there is some speculation as to where she ends up, but she never makes any attempts to reconnect with her daughter. She’s jealous of the baby because it takes some of Ghetto’s attention away from her and from the cause. He, on the other hand, wants to back out of the group because it is dangerous for all of them. In the years after Perfida’s disappearance, he does his best to protect her and train her but copes with his failures and loss with alcohol and various other recreational drugs, never fully believing trouble will actually find him again. This leads to him forgetting some of the details he would need to remember should he even need to contact the French 75 again. 

In a rather bizarre series of events, when trouble does come to town, he turns to Willa’s karate instructor, Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), who also happens to be the leader of the undocumented community in Baktan Cross. Sergio is far more competent of a man when it comes to dealing with the siege on the city than Bob, evacuating the citizens ahead of the raid, and getting Bob out of trouble several times, including after he is captured trying to escape. For all of Bob’s manic paranoia and drug and alcohol-fueled mental state, Sergio stays calm and collected and holds things together while maintaining a stone-faced sense of humor. 

No amount of protection that Sergio can provide will get Willa back, though, since she has been captured by Lockjaw and is proven to be his daughter. Sean Penn is a bonafide caricature here, yet he somehow makes it work. He carries himself like a man with a perpetual stick up his butt, even walking like that is a physical thing he is plagued with. He’s military through and through, wearing a very tight shirt to enunciate his muscles, yet he gets offended when Willa asks him why, assuming she is accusing him of being gay. This is a character with a capital C, and Sean Penn is working overtime to make this a real person despite how ridiculous he comes across. He is so successful at it that he is among the nominees for supporting actor, in direct competition with Benicio del Toro

A little too on the nose is the Christmas Adventurers Club, especially when we get their first secret meeting to discuss what to do about Lockjaw. These are men in the government, powerful men who stand for racial purity and a whole lot of other nonsense. They might as well be spouting Heil Hitler’s as they talk about their superiority and pat themselves on the back for being white. The worst part of this, though, is their mantra, Hail Santa, which sounds eerily like Hail Satan. There is no doubt that that is deliberate. 

This is Paul Thomas Anderson’s 10th film. While there is no doubt that this is one of his films just by looking at it, it still feels like the writer/director reinventing himself. He simply refuses to be pigeonholed into any one kind of film. This makes any new project of his of particular interest because you never know what it will be. The tone of this one is all over the place, but that isn’t a negative in this case. In fact, that aids the film by letting us share in the insanity that is the minds of Bob and Lockjaw. It also plays loose with the characters of the French 75 painting many of them as unhinged radicals convinced of their superiority. Later it will lampoon the organization with an obnoxious man on the phone who won’t accept Bob’s attempts to get information from them because he cannot remember every last bit of the code words. 

The pacing of this film is a bit uneven, but this is a minor quibble. For a near three-hour picture, this one flies by quickly, even on repeat viewings. It’s funny, profane, and is perhaps the best Paul Thomas Anderson film since Magnolia. The finale holds some funny surprises in it, too, complete with a shockingly ridiculous moment where a character takes a shotgun to the face yet manages to walk away from it in the end, scarred but otherwise unharmed. It’s a moment that would only work in a film like this. This film will probably take the Best Picture Oscar for 2025, and it deserves it. Paul Thomas Anderson has been a critical and Academy darling for most of his career and he is due.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Adam Somner (p.n.), Sara Murphy, and Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio

Best Supporting Actor: Benicio del Toro

Best Supporting Actor: Sean Penn

Best Supporting Actress: Teyana Taylor

Best Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Casting: Cassandra Kulukundis

Best Cinematography: Michael Bauman

Best Film Editing: Andy Jurgensen

Best Original Score: Jonny Greenwood

Best Production Design: Anthony Carlino and Florencia Martin

Best Sound: José Antonio Garcia, Christopher Scarabosio, and Tony Villaflor

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Release Date: September 26, 2025

Running Time: 162 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor, and Chase Infiniti

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson