One battle after another (2025) - paul thomas anderson - film review
90%
By O. Jacobs
Pictured - Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson
One Battle After Another (2025) is a hilarious glimpse into yet again, another Paul Thomas Anderson universe in which the characters feel so real and so believeable, it is sometimes easy to forget there are actors beneath ‘Bob Ferguson’ and ‘Sergio St. Carlos’, or the psychotic magnetism of ‘Col. Steve Lockjaw’.
Inspired by the 1990 Novel Vineland by Thomas Pynchon, One Battle succeeds in weaving together an entertaining multi-layered story, with a somber political + personal overtone with one minimalist piano suite after another, wasting absolutely none of its 2hr 50min runtime.
While Anderson’s close pal and filmaker mutual Quentin Tarantinto thrives in gradiosity and shock value, PTA satisfyingly acheives similar intensity without ever straying from the films pulsing-driving beat. OBAA is the visual, political, emotional, & thrilling cinematic buffet you’ve been waiting to attend, and the price of admission is merely a theater ticket.
