The first 40 minutes of Paul Thomas Anderson’s newest feature, “One Battle After Another,” fly by in an instant. Rebellious, violent activity, intense sexual encounters and a handful of explosions from our rag-tag group of protagonists, “The French 75” locks the viewer into the narrative almost immediately. Johnny Greenwood’s heart-pounding score backs all of this. Although it’s thrilling, it seems like somewhat of a merry exercise, not interested in consequences, but rather the heroizing of its main characters. This all flips on its head around the forty-five mark of the film. Our ultra-left femme fatale, Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), has left her doting husband, Ghetto Pat (Leonardo DiCaprio) and their newly born child at home to rob a bank. While her associate, Junglep*ssy (Shayna McHayle), delivers an excellently written speech to the cowering bank patrons, a gunshot is heard off-screen.

So far, gunshots have been used as a symbol of fighting back and personal expression; their auditory mellowed for watchability, but not this one. This shot, fired from Perfidia’s pistol into the back of a security guard, made me jump all three times I have seen this film in the theater. Rather than shying away from this bullet’s impact, Anderson embraces it. Perfidia fires again, killing the officer. It’s the first time we see one of our heroes take the life of an innocent person. The joyride of the film’s beginning is finally catching up to Perfidia, as parental responsibilities and real-world consequences weigh her down. This thundering gunshot marks a turning point in the movie, from the fast and light-on-its-feet opening to the slower and more intentional next two hours. It’s a moment that shows us Anderson isn’t afraid to address consequences; it grounds the viewer and raises the stakes infinitely higher for the riveting action that ensues.

The beginning of the narrative treats Perfidia as our main protagonist, but after the aforementioned gunshot (which leads to her arrest, causing the downfall of the French 75 and a 16-year time jump, Ghetto Pat, now under the alias of Bob Ferguson, becomes our central character. Before the leap, Perfidia chose to rat out all of her fellow revolutionaries to live a life in the Witness Protection Program and then fled to Mexico, disappearing. Bob is now a single parent of a 16-year-old daughter, living in a completely off-the-grid shack in the woods of the fictitious Northern California city of Baktan Cross; he spends his nights drinking with his buddies at the local bar and spends all day smoking his marijuana pen and watching movies on his couch. He has defaulted to being a stoner hermit and has formed a significant disconnect with his daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti). Bob is just the latest in a long line of Anderson’s earnest but misguided lead male protagonists (Adam Sandler in “Punch-Drunk Love”, Phillip Seymour-Hoffman in “Magnolia”, Mark Wahlberg in “Boogie Nights”, Joaquin Phoenix in “Inherent Vice,” etc.) Like Bob, Anderson is the father of a mixed-race child and now a member of an older generation trying to keep up with the times. This personal insight that Anderson writes directly into his leading character allows the viewer to connect instantaneously with Bob and provides an incredibly realistic personality.

The incredible performances are easily one of the largest takeaways from the film. DiCaprio is the standout, as he leads the narrative and has settled into the perfect middle-aged role, slouchy and stuck in the past generation. Simultaneously, Sean Penn is downright unbelievable in his performance as the villainous Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw. An arsenal of discomforting facial ticks, including lip-smacking and nose-scrunching, a peculiar limp and posture, a dynamite set of dialogue and an additional “mmm” at the end of every sentence, makes him an absolute magnet while on screen. Akin to other Anderson antagonists, Penn rides the line between delightful and terrifying at all times. Teyana Taylor is also captivating in her short stint in the film’s driver’s seat, Regina Hall delivers a few emotionally impactful key scenes and Chase Infiniti holds her own against some of cinema’s greats for much of the film’s runtime.

One of the central themes of the project is the natural arc of a person’s life – from being young, full of discontent, ambition and rebellion, to becoming older, settling into traditional life, becoming more conservative and valuing contentment over global issues. When we first meet DiCaprio’s character, he is doe-eyed with dreams of revolting and aspirations of becoming part of something larger than himself. He will follow those he looks up to to the end of the earth, believing that he’s fighting towards some greater good. He receives battle commands from Perfidia and lets her lead their intimate experiences. Anderson uses him as an allegory for young American teenagers in the modern day, full of sexual urge and the desire to be subversive, but without any of the ability, if not led. And as he ages, he enjoys easy, simple pleasures – weed, alcohol, comedy films, cheap entertainment. He settles into his empty everyday routine, not worrying about anything as long as he is content. He values the safety of his family, his daughter, over fighting against the machine for a larger goal. He wants to connect with her and be the “cool” dad, but feels as if he is failing. Long gone are his extremist, radical beliefs; instead, they have been replaced with family values and self-satisfaction.

Additionally, a core theme of the film is the exploration of American race and power dynamics. Two of the main characters, Perfidia and Willa, are Black women and attention is drawn to the daily hardships that Black women face. Perfidia is endlessly fetishized by the men around her and is a victim of vast amounts of hate from the police force. There’s a shot around the forty-five-minute mark of the film, after Perfidia has been arrested and is being escorted out of a hospital, of her sitting dehumanized, donning a hospital gown and being wheeled out in a wheelchair. She is surrounded by male white police officers, taking selfies with the degraded revolutionaries and reveling in her misery and captivity. Although narratively, the shot makes sense given her self-declared war on the American government, the image itself still speaks volumes to the treatment of black people by the American police force. Perfidia’s character as a whole is a critique of power systems, as she consistently holds control over older white men. It is steeped into American culture that older white men hold all the power, while others, including Black women, are below them. Perfidia flips this power system on its head, constantly in charge of large militant organizations and holding jurisdiction over white men, namely Col. Lockjaw.

The most apparent theme that Anderson grapples with is the strong and straightforward critique of present-day American politics. Inhumane treatment of Mexican immigrants is a key event of the film’s opening and phrases like “fascist regime” and “imperialist state” are thrown around throughout the film. The movie also makes its political affiliation vividly clear five minutes into the movie, when Perfidia “declares war” on Col. Lockjaw and the American government. She calls for the abolition of borders, abortion rights, the transgender communities’ right to healthcare, and the deserved freedom from fear. It’s not hard to pick apart the film’s political messaging from there.

As I previously mentioned, I have seen this film three times in theaters. The first two times (back-to-back days on opening weekend), I was merely an Anderson fanboy, ecstatic about every shot and comedic beat. With the excitement I had surrounding this project, it was hard for me not to. The third time, almost a week after opening night (so I had a bit more distance from the exhilarating build-up I had created for myself), I tried to take off my PTA-devotee glasses and hunt for any issues the film had. Although I found very little, the film has a certain go-with-the-flow quality that tends to skip over minor details and plot points to avoid slowing the narrative down. I personally don’t mind this, as the nearly three-hour film didn’t need any more time spent on trivial information, but it could take others out of the story. There are a few paltry plotlines that go unfinished and some things that simply aren’t explained. I believe this isn’t because Anderson cannot answer these questions, but instead feels they would hinder the film’s flow; but others may not agree.

Every once in a while, a film emerges that feels so monumental, so relevant, and so inventive and fresh that it becomes a landmark for decades to come. The likes of “Star Wars”, “Pulp Fiction”, “Titanic” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” are on this shortlist of films. I believe “One Battle After Another” is the latest movie to join these ranks. It’s the pinnacle of two of our greatest working film artists (Anderson and DiCaprio), a remarkably reflective and telling portrayal of the time we’re living in and a breath of fresh air into our cultural canon. A masterful work of storytelling, screenwriting, acting and camerawork, “One Battle After Another” is a once-in-a-generation film.