One Battle After Another (2025)
Anything by Poul Thomas Anderson is always worth watching with some anticipation. There isn’t a finger to put on his film making craft. While every PTA film is unique, there are recurring themes with how he portrays people that posses influence over others. This is taken in a new direction here where the great grand hero of the revolution is DiCaprio in the role of “the dude” from The Big Lebowski. His character make the film pretty damn funny, with how he barely has any effect on events as basically everyone around him is saving his ass again and again. It is clear that he really just wants to be a dad, but circumstances force him into the fight between fascists and revolutionaries.
It is understandable that this film at this moment in history is resonating widely, as the racists facist enemy is barely a caricature of the people behind Project 2025. I see this film as PTA way of making a modern myth of a resistance before it happens, but presented in a mostly easygoing manner where the reality of the rise of fascism and a divided world is held mostly at arms length. In that way it is similar to Alex Garland’s Civil War where the rising polarization in America is used as window dressing to tell a story about something else.
Rating: 4