Film Review: The Master

Hi everyone!

Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film "The Master" is, quite simply, a thrilling piece of film-making with a performance by Joaquin Phoenix that I dare anyone to challenge isn't the best performance by an actor in a film this year. Yes, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Lancaster Dodd, the would-be founder of a religious cult not unlike Scientology, is terrific. Mr. Hoffman just possesses such a natural and magnetic screen and stage presence that I don't think it's possible for him to give a bad performance. And Amy Adams, as Lancaster's cold and eerily indoctrinated wife, gives a thoroughly chilling performance in a role that while not commanding a lot of screen time, is quietly and frighteningly effective. Yet, for me, this is Joaquin's movie. After a bizarre 'performance art' turn in the mockumentary "I'm Still Here"(which may or may not have been a mental/emotional breakdown) and a solemn pledge to give up acting in favor of becoming a rapper, Mr. Phoenix proves in his performance as the disenfranchised alcoholic World War Two seaman Freddy Quell that he is the greatest actor of his generation.

This is a big and beautifully photographed 'event' film. From its Pacific seascapes to a motorcycle ride through the Arizona desert evocative of David Lean's "Laurence of Arabia," "The Master" leaves its viewer in a visual thrall. Anchoring all of this beauty, however, is the tortured and tormented Freddy Quell (Joaquin Phoenix). Freddy's narrative is a little vague. What little we know about him is through a handful of insights the character provides during an early indoctrination session with Mr. Hoffman's Lancaster: during the war, he loved a girl "back home" who left him for another guy; his mother is in a mental institution, he had a sexual relationship with an aunt, and he killed a lot of "Japs" during the war. Interwoven throughout the film are flashbacks of Freddy's story. The girl he loved back home was a sixteen year-old girl who had written letters to him while he was on the Pacific Front. He had actually never met her until after the war had ended. Early in the film, we see Freddy being interviewed by the Navy upon his discharge. He's being told of the difficulties he will inevitably face adjusting to life in the real world after having suffered through the traumas of war.

We then see Freddy drinking his way through a host of meaningless, soul-deadening jobs (photographing wealthy patrons of a department store, picking cabbages, etc) until he winds up in the dubious care of Lancaster Dodd, the creator of a religious organization called The Cause, who takes Freddy under his wing and tries to mould Freddy into something of his own image with rather shaky results. Although Freddy is an alcoholic and probably half-crazy, he's still a fairly sharp guy, at least when he allows himself to be. He observes, he listens, he sees things. He's tortured by his past (however undefined) and despite Lancaster's "best" intentions, Freddy never quite conforms to the Cause's doctrines. As such, he proves a threat, most especially it seems to Lancaster's wife (Amy Adams) who has her own way of dealing with the darker forces that always seem to threaten her's and Lancaster's tightly controlled family unit. I won't go into this here but I will say I found it probably the most frightening (and unexpected) scene in the film.

"The Master" is one of those films that begs to be viewed a second time. The ending, for example, kind of mystified me because, at least upon initial viewing, it didn't feel like an ending at all. I won't give it away except to say that it somehow defused the tension and power and the mesmerizing quality of the preceding two hours-and-twenty-minutes of the film's running time. I sat through the end credits feeling confused and wondering whether the film itself was nothing but an elaborate hoax, much ado about ultimately nothing. I don't think this is the case but I can understand how a casual film-goer is going to be left feeling totally unsatisfied. I need to see it again...

Still, I highly recommend "The Master" if for no other reason than its performances and its visual style. I'm not sure about the narrative or its overall meaning, but then...not all great works of art are easily defined or understood. I believe "The Master" to be a true work of cinematic art. I'm just not sure the mainstream is going to be quite as embracing.