The Master (**1/2)

Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Magnolia), is one of the few director of whom it can be said both that he brings a distinctive sensibility to all his films, yet makes films distinctly different from each other. A common element is the presence of a character pushed to his limit, often along with a larger-than-life character who pushes him there. That was the case with There Will Be Blood, set in the early days of the oil business, and is in the film, set in mostly in the first years of the 1950s. Pushed to his limits is Freddy Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), a drifter, alcoholic, sex-obsessive, and World War II veteran who literally wanders into the orbit of larger-than-life Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

Said to be inspired by the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Dodd is a man bold enough to introduce himself as a “writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist, a theoretical philosopher, but above all…a man.” The Dodd we encounter in this film has already coalesced into his final form as a guru, though. His philosophies, gathered in a book called The Cause, are an admixture of simple mind-over-matter pronouncements — “man is not an animal” —and metaphysical gobbledegook. His own son says that he “makes hit up as he goes along,” but his second wife (Amy Adams) seems simultaneously to be a true believer and to understand that “The Cause,” as it is called in the movie, is a self-creation. Assistant, partner, moral compass, power behind the throne, and more, this character intrigues in Adams’s relatively few scenes. Though we aren’t meant to take the Cause seriously, and it’s doesn’t seem that Dodd is truly sinister (so the movie is no exposé), the ways such men seduce their followers seems to me an inherently fascinating subject.


Unfortunately, the way Anderson explores this subject is through the lens of the film’s primary protagonist, Quell called a “scoundrel” by Dodd but nonetheless an object of indulgence, curiosity, and attention for him. Quill is not likable; he is not impressive; he is not a villain; he is not even particularly complex; he is alienating rather than charismatic, as the Daniel-Day Lewis character in There Will Be Blood was charismatic. In short, he is a difficult, unpleasant character to follow for two and a half hours. Though I gather that we are supposed to become involved in his efforts to overcome the darker parts of his nature, and the efforts of Dodd and, to a lesser extent, his followers, I did not find myself absorbed by this quest, though individual scenes between the two of them, which often are like a strange kind of therapy, are intense and well done. I will also concede that Phoenix’s portrayal is consistent and skillful, even down to his odd posture, and my reaction to the character, that he seems incredibly creepy and repellent, subjective, as was my feeling that Phoenix seemed too old to portray the character. (A subplot is Quell continuing longing for a girl he knew when she was 16; it’s unclear how old Quell is supposed to have been when he knew her, but the flashback scenes make no attempt to make Phoenix look younger. Also, the plot fits better if we assume Quell was about 20, not 30 or so, when he courted the girl and went off to join the Navy. But Quell/Phoenix looks too old to have been 20 around 1941.)

In a way, figures like Dodd (or Hubbard) represent the seemingly very American ability to turn imagination, even an amalgamation of psychobabble and pseudoscience, into reality. No doubt it’s unfair of me to want the movie to be Elmer Gantry, i.e. more about the spiritual leader as huckster. No doubt Anderson is a very skillful filmmaker. His camerawork, especially in shooting wide vistas, is memorable, and there is an intensity he brings to his storytelling. But, no doubt, I found The Master only intermittently spellbinding.

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viewed 11/14/12 5:15 pm at Ritz 5 and reviewed 11/15–11/17/12

Gran Torino (***1/4)

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viewed 12/31/08 at Ritz 5

The King (**1/2)

Characters whose motivations are opaque undermine a provocative film about a Navy vet who goes searching for his biological father but winds up sleeping with his underage half-sister.

The charismatic Gael García Bernal has, by starring in four popular Spanish-language films (Y Tu Mamá También, The Motorcycle Diaries, Amores Perros, and El Crimen del Padre Amaro), became about as well known a star as you can become in this country without speaking English. But he does speak English, and pretty well, in James Marsh’s The King. Saddled with that most iconic of norteamericano names, Elvis, he plays a Navy veteran who goes right to Corpus Christi upon his discharge, and, pausing only to engage the services of a hooker, a used-auto dealer, and a motel clerk, heads over to see his dad (William Hurt), the popular pastor of a modern yet conservative local church. The product of the pastor’s pre-Christian youth, Elvis has never met his dad. However, given a cool reception from the pastor, he instead immediately focuses his attention on his sixteen-year-old half sister (Pell James), who doesn’t know who he is.

Marsh is a documentary filmmaker whose credits include something called The Burger & the King: The Life and Death of Elvis Presley, and nothing else really explains why his main character is called Elvis and the movie titled as it is. There’s a lot unexplained here, in a movie almost entirely without subtext. We know almost nothing of Elvis’s past. Why is he so instantly smitten with his relative, who is underage and not beautiful? She seems even more of a blank slate. If she has a rebellious streak, it’s not apparent. What, besides his obvious good looks, makes her willing to start a relationship she must hide? The viewer may form ideas about these questions, but I believe they will be mere guesses. The King held my curiosity as any movie with a secret (and not just the one I’ve identified) at the center is apt to do. The way the family (including the pastor’s wife and son) reacts to the stranger is surprising. I thought from the early scenes that the family’s seemingly simple religiosity would be the target of satire. But in fact only Hurt’s supporting character takes on any sort of complexity. He’s the only one you feel like you understand more at the end of the movie than the beginning.

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