September 25th, 1998, the day I was born, and 27 years later, the day I watched One Battle After Another for the first time. Leading up to it I saw people calling it the movie of the year, some even went so far as to call it the movie of the decade. I had seen the trailer for it a few times, but it was hard to discern anything based on that. Boogie Nights was the only other PTA movie I had watched going into it. I was expecting a good movie that would ultimately not live up to the overwhelming hype it was getting days before it officially released. Not only did it live up to the hype, but in my mind, it surpassed it.
Full disclosure, as of writing this I have watched this movie three times, and I can’t refute the possibility of a fourth viewing over the coming weeks. With every viewing, a new member of the cast stands out. The main cast was outstanding, but even the smaller roles that only have a scene or two were great. The police interrogator, the head nun, the two women Bob encounters at the hospital, everyone fulfilled their roles flawlessly.
One of the standouts to me the first go round was Chase Infiniti as Willa. On the screen she was the teenage daughter of revolutionaries, caught in the middle of a deranged love triangle. Off the screen, she was a young actress surrounded by tenured, powerhouse actors, in her first major movie role. She more than held her own. I was extremely impressed with the way she was able to convey and project emotions with her body language and subtle facial expressions. You really get a sense of her defiance, her anger, her spirit, her fear through her performance. I heard that they’re going to push her in the leading actress category during awards season, I don’t know how good of a chance she has of winning, but I think it’s really cool she’s being recognized for this performance.
Teyana Taylor gives an electrifying performance as Perfidia Beverley Hills, you can feel the weight of her presence throughout the film even in scenes she’s not physically involved in. I thought it was cool the way the movie depicted the different approaches to the revolution. To Perfidia, the revolution wasn’t about a specific ideology as much as it was about power, more specifically her ability to assert her own power over others. Throughout the prologue of this movie, we see the effectiveness of this approach as well as the pitfalls of it. I know some people have had an issue with the sexualized way she was shot and portrayed in the film, but to me it felt very intentional. Throughout history black sexuality has been desired and sought after and it felt to me like Perfidia and the character named Junglepussy (lol) were shown as a subversion of that history. Their sexuality was weaponized, used as an attempt to display their power and liberation.
Okay, I know Sensei Sergio was a beloved character in this film, and rightfully so, but I really think Sean Penn’s Lockjaw character was the best supporting role in the movie. I thought he was brilliant. He was offputting and grotesque in the most specific ways, his little mannerisms were repugnant, his little walk was ridiculous. He was red and veiny and kept doing weird things with his saliva and I felt pure disgust for him almost instinctually. He somehow walked the line between absurdist humour, and menace. He felt unhinged and dangerous but also lost. He was drawn to the thing he was cultured to hate most. The hate he was meant to harbor for black women, was instead redirected to himself. We see him combat that shame and self hatred throughout the film. I thought his desire to be accepted by the Christmas Adventurers was an interesting allegory for class in America as well. Lockjaw was this accomplished and respected veteran, a working class man that spent his time relentlessly attacking minorities and hunting immigrants so he could be embraced by the elite. These people exist in real life too. They defend the rich, they revere the rich, they vote in the interests of the rich instead of the interests of their fellow working man/woman/person because they long to be accepted by a group that hoards their wealth and looks at outsiders as if they’re dogs.
Along with Willa, Sensei was my favorite character in the film. I’m fully expecting a supporting actor nomination for Benicio del Toro, and rightfully so, though I still think Sean Penn deserves the win over him. The Latino Harriet Tubman scene was one of the best sequences of the film in my opinion, and apparently it was del Toro himself that came up with the idea. I loved seeing his impassive demeanor on screen next to DiCaprio. It felt at times that they were in a buddy cop film instead of a thriller, but it worked for me. As I mentioned earlier, this film kind of goes into the surface level of different approaches to the revolution. While Perfidia and the French 75 had a more anarchist approach gatekept by passwords and codenames, Sensei showed the power of building community within the established barometers of society. The French 75 wanted to tear things down, and del Toro’s character wanted to build. I know there are some out there that think anarchy is the only way to fix the system, a violent uprising with no real leaders where everyone can be equal. Personally, I don’t subscribe to that notion. I believe that we need leaders like Sensei to spearhead any sort of change to the system. Leaders who aren’t afraid to shake shit up to do what’s right, leaders who keep a calm head under pressure, leaders who know how to make the right connections in order to protect and advance their cause. This film was definitely not a how-to guide on the revolution, and it didn’t even really discuss the merits of the revolution, but I thought it was cool seeing the different approaches interacting with each other on the screen.
The second and third times I watched this I walked away more and more impressed by Regina Hall’s performance. Her role is understated, and I know some people are probably wishing she had more screen time, but I felt she fulfilled her role masterfully. Hall was the glue of the movie, holding all the narrative threads together. Willa and she served as the emotional core, the perfect counterbalance to the more zany, absurdity of Lockjaw and Bob. Hall helped the film feel grounded and allowed us to get a sense of the full gravity of the situation. I know Teyana will likely get more buzz when it’s time for awards season, but I really feel this performance from Hall was Oscar worthy.
The last character I’ll touch on is DiCaprio as Bob. He was great, of course, but I loved how he let himself look like a fool for almost the whole film. I think parenthood was one of the core themes of the film. Perfidia’s journey into motherhood was one of the inciting incidents, and we feel its impact for the duration of the film. Ultimately I think this film was saying that being a parent means always being there for your children no matter what, even if you’re completely inept with whatever they need, you just need to be there. Bob was old, washed up, with a brain hampered by drug abuse, and ultimately powerless to really help his daughter, but he was there. I also really liked that Willa was presented as an active force instead of a passive damsel who was just waiting to be saved.
Other Thoughts
- I believe Tupac had a quote about how the world takes your heart and soul once you turn a certain age. When you’re young and idealistic and full of passion, you feel like you can enact change, but the world humbles us all eventually. That was another theme I took from this film. We are shown the toll that fighting this sort of fight can take over the years, it can beat you down, especially if you’re not in it for the right reasons. That probably sounds pessimistic, but I left this movie feeling optimistic. Every new generation has a chance to do something that the previous generations failed to do, and I feel that’s what the ending of this film was trying to convey with Willa. She was fiery, tenacious, indignant, brave, intelligent, resilient. She was the embodiment of hope for the future.
- The Christmas Adventurers made a big deal about cleanliness and purity. They wanted the country to be pure, they wanted their group to be pure, everything had to be pure and clean. There was a moment when Lockjaw referred to Willa as a mutt, and another scene where Bob is referred to as trash by Sensei (affectionately). Initially I took it to be a commentary on the evils and regressiveness of the desire for racial purity, but thinking about it now, it could also be taken to mean that cleanliness is the state of the current system, and the act of change and progression is dirty and impure. I think the nature of the dynamic between Lockjaw and Bob encapsulates that. Lockjaw was orderly and rigid while Bob was sloppy and disjointed.
- I loved the score. There were three instances where the main theme played and the swell of the music perfectly added to the tension of the scene. The soundtrack was also elite, “Ready or Not” by the Jackson 5 feels simultaneously haunting and hopeful after watching this. Also it was such an inspired idea to have the trackers play a tune whenever they were within range of each other, the first time I watched it, the sound triggered tears in me during a scene near the end of the film.
- Saying the cinematography in this film was great would be a drastic understatement. The scene in the bathroom at the high school and the car chase scene at the end (I call it the roller coaster scene because I literally felt like I was on a roller coaster watching it in theaters) was simply masterful filmwork.
Nothing makes me feel more alive than a walk on a brisk autumn evening after a good workout when the sun is setting on the horizon, and the moments immediately after a great movie when I’m leaving the theater and feeling like a part of me has been irrevocably changed. Consuming a great piece of art feels genuinely life affirming, and after watching One Battle After Another, I left the theater feeling ready to be 27.
Just some guy on the internet 