Paul Thomas Anderson’s Funniest Film (Wearing Its Saddest Clothes)
One Battle After Another introduces us to the French 75, a revolutionary group officially branded as terrorists and unofficially branded as people who have never owned a colorful sweater. They fight oppression, fascism, and presumably happiness itself
by attacking strategic targets and smashing things with ideological conviction.
Sixteen years after being almost wiped out and forced into hiding (mostly in very grey places), an old enemy resurfaces with a personal grudge,
triggering yet another mission involving explosives, trauma, and unresolved feelings.
From the very first reel, I had the unmistakable sensation of déjà vu. Not the bad kind—more like the cinephile déjà vu, where your brain goes:
“Ah yes, I’ve seen this brilliant, political, genre-blending, darkly funny thing before… possibly several times.”
The screenplay is fluid, intelligent, and genuinely funny, but the characters, situations, gestures, pauses, and meaningful stares feel oddly recycled, like leftovers reheated by a master chef.
Still delicious—but my patience started checking its phone.
Paul Thomas Anderson floors the accelerator and never looks back.
This film is sharp, fast, funny, and confident,
like a lecture delivered by someone who refuses to use PowerPoint.
Anderson plunges us into contemporary America without preaching, which is no small feat for a film this political.
The characters are walking contradictions—human, flawed, often ridiculous—and the film happily shoots jokes at both sides of the ideological battlefield.
No pulpits, no sermons, just expertly deployed irony and chaos.
There’s a central character who pops up like an ideological gremlin, hilariously threading the story together while we’re never quite sure if his actions actually matter.
The shifting perspectives turn the film into a surprisingly ensemble piece, making us crave more time with certain characters—
especially Benicio del Toro, who radiates chaotic genius and desperately deserves a spinoff, a miniseries, or at least ten more minutes of screen time.
The cast is, frankly, ridiculous (in the best way).
Leonardo DiCaprio does his usual “effortlessly intense but somehow still funny” routine, clearly flirting with another awards season run.
Chase Infiniti shines, Teyana Taylor impresses, Regina Hall keeps things admirably restrained—and then there’s Sean Penn.
Sean Penn is unrecognizable, terrifying, hilarious, magnetic, and weirdly lovable.
As Colonel Lockjaw, he delivers what might be the closest thing to a perfect performance of his career:
a charming extremist, a villain you don’t want to agree with but absolutely want to watch.
The conflict itself is not a conventional war.
It begins with an extremist movement helping immigrants detained at the border.
They don’t kill guards—but they do destroy an impressive amount of property.
Perfidia is the face and fire of the movement.
Bob is the explosives guy (because there’s always an explosives guy). Colonel Lockjaw hates everything they stand for… while also being deeply, unsettlingly obsessed with Perfidia.
Therapy would not help here.
Guerrilla tactics ensue. Bodies pile up.
Then—sixteen years later—we jump to Bob and his daughter living a suspiciously normal life, far from secret codes and explosions, until the past inevitably kicks the door down.
The Colonel, now flirting with a secret racist group,
decides to clean up his history by hunting down everyone connected to the movement he damaged but never fully erased.
Closure, but make it violent.
Technically, the film is flawless.
Anderson’s command of narrative is sensational.
At 160 minutes, it somehow never drags,
moving with a prodigious rhythm that makes this one of his most entertaining films.
The cinematography is imposing,
the kind that makes people say “you must see this in a theater” with religious conviction.
The score actively manipulates your mood like an emotional DJ.
The long tracking shots are pure flex.
And yet.
The aesthetic. The costumes. The decor. Endless proletarian misery chic. Grey coats, grey rooms, grey streets, grey souls. I get it.
Symbolism. Oppression. Bleakness. But audiences are already depressed. The world is already bleak.
Did we really need more grey?
At some point I wasn’t rooting for the revolution—I was rooting for a lamp with a warm bulb.
If the film were only DiCaprio, Penn, and Infiniti, it would already be a satisfying political drama.
Everything else—especially Del Toro—exists to remind us that America has many problems, many micro-armies,
and an endless supply of small wars to fight within itself.
The enemy is ideological and shared.
This is, unapologetically, a political film.
A long, loud, smart cry against how absurd and dangerous the world has become.
Two hours and forty minutes of shouting, despair, intelligence, and the occasional joke that never undermines the drama.
One Battle After Another doesn’t want to be just entertainment, nor merely a generational manifesto.
It wants to be a reminder: that the past never lets go,
that shortcuts today sabotage tomorrow,
and that the planet isn’t ours—we’re just borrowing it for whoever comes next.
Brilliant? Yes.
Exhausting? Occasionally.
Funny, sharp, and impeccably made? Absolutely.
Just maybe… next time, a little less déjà vu—and a little less grey.
By Giulia Dobre
Bucharest
Decembre 29th, 2025.
