‘One Battle After Another’ Brings Paul Thomas Anderson (and Leo) Into A New Leading-Man Era

Early in his career, Paul Thomas Anderson, perhaps following in the footsteps of his idol Robert Altman, established an unofficial rep company of actors across different roles in different movies. John C. Reilly, Philip Baker Hall, Melora Walters, and Philip Seymour Hoffman were there from the start, all appearing in Hard Eight, and continuing on in Boogie Nights and Magnolia. The latter two share even more cast members; Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Ricky Jay, and Luis Guzmán co-star in both. At the same time, Anderson echoed one of his contemporaries, resurrecting the movie career of Burt Reynolds (albeit temporarily) and directing him to an Oscar nomination for Boogie Nights. He also anticipated Tarantino’s later pivot to big movie stars, snagging Tom Cruise for his Magnolia ensemble. And just as Tarantino had further ideas for Uma Thurman and Samuel L. Jackson after Pulp Fiction, it was easy to imagine Anderson recombining Reilly, Hoffman, Moore, and Macy, among others, in perpetuity. Maybe even Cruise, too!

But in the 21st century, Anderson’s casting has gone in another direction. Punch-Drunk Love has a few of his mainstays, with small parts for Guzmán and Hoffman, built around a vehicle for Adam Sandler that weirdly recalls the Cruise material in Magnolia for how it plays a superstar’s strengths while also subverting their routines and pushing them forward. But There Will Be Blood began a new phase, starting with the casting of Daniel Day-Lewis, who by that point was only taking on a new film every two or three years. Eclectic and talented actors have worked with Anderson from 2007 forward, but for the first time, he had leading men who he returned to: Day-Lewis, in Blood and Phantom Thread; and Joaquin Phoenix, in The Master and Inherent Vice. In that context, Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance in One Battle After Another feels like a midpoint between the two.

That the selective, often semi-retired Day-Lewis agreed to make not one but two movies with Anderson feels like something conferred upon the filmmaker – practically a royal title – and that sensibility informs the movies themselves. It’s not that Phantom Thread and There Will Be Blood are exactly in thrall of the legendary actor at their center; he disappears into the roles, as is his custom. But both Reynolds Woodcock and Daniel Plainview are men whose ambitions exploit the towering status of the actor playing them. We’re not meant to remain in awe of them (at least not in the way that either man would prefer), but they both exert a domineering presence over the story at hand, albeit with different outcomes. Plainview seeks domination of the world around him, which he cannot fully achieve until the movie’s bloody, unhinged finale, finally eradicating his soul in triumph. Woodcock, meanwhile, learns to submit himself to his partner (Vicky Krieps), seeming to redeem himself for his monstrously fussy ego. That turn doesn’t register unless he comes across, in his quiet fashion-designer way, as fearsome.

Joaquin Phoenix is a more inward performer; in his last decade-plus, he often seems on the verge of curling into himself in discomfort, words emitted from him in reluctant mumbles. In some ways, The Master feels like ground zero for that approach; it was there in earlier films, but as the maladjusted WWII veteran Freddie Quell, he feels particularly gnarled and alienated. Since then, those affects have appeared difficult for him to shake off (and in Joker, frankly, seemed to be ripping off his own galvanizing work; naturally, he won an Oscar for his trouble). Even in the more comic Inherent Vice, where he does some killer pratfalls as a stoned detective in a Thomas Pynchon adaptation, he has a recessive, shrunken quality.

DiCaprio is inherently more open and accessible than Phoenix; it’s in his movie-star DNA. He’s part of the reason Anderson has been able to make his second Pynchon adaptation somehow feel like one of his most accessible films yet. (One Battle After Another also diverges more from its source material than Inherent Vice.) But DiCaprio does follow Phoenix’s lead in making Bob Ferguson, an ex-revolutionary now marinating in paranoia as he tries to raise his teenage daughter in relative seclusion, a bit of a zonked-out stumblebum – only this one is animated more by anger and (when his daughter is endangered) panic than by Phoenix’s rumpled sadness. Like Cruise in Magnolia, DiCaprio is playing a variation on past characters, laid somewhat low by non-superstar circumstances. (Yes, Frank Mackey is successful, but he’s still hawking “Seduce & Destroy” techniques at cheesy seminars.) The movie even hilariously, perversely name-checks Cruise – this has to be the first former Anderson star discussed by characters in a subsequent film, not least because few of his films take place later than the 1970s – as a model for who Bob should attempt to emulate when he hesitates over the action heroics being asked of him. By casting someone between the twitchiness of Phoenix and the confidence of Day-Lewis, Anderson has found a way to indulge Bob’s weaknesses without making his potential triumphs seem absolutely absurd.

There’s practicality, too, in casting DiCaprio; it doubtless helped secure Anderson the bigger-than-normal budget for this effort. It’s likely a transitional move, in that DiCaprio will probably go back to Scorsese collaborations and a presumed great-director checklist rather than becoming the new face of Anderson’s work. One Battle After Another does show signs of a new Anderson rep company forming anyway. Alana Haim, the musician who gave a breakout lead performance in Licorice Pizza, returns for a smaller role, while Sean Penn, who had an extended single scene in Pizza, has a meatier part in Battle. Benicio del Toro also reunites with Anderson following Inherent Vice. But by design, these actors aren’t necessarily working in sync (whether together or in parallel) the way the Magnolia ensemble did. How could they? It’s a completely different type of movie.

Moreover, Anderson’s most frequent actor, Philip Seymour Hoffman, tragically passed away in 2014. The PTA rep company had mostly dissolved by that point, but Hoffman’s presence in his post-2000 movies was a major link back to those early days. One Battle After Another is about characters with those kinds of frayed links, so it’s only appropriate that the history between its actors and filmmaker is more patchwork than clear lineage. The intuitive decision as Anderson moves away from ensemble movies – even his big-cast features no longer have that evened-out unity – would be to select a semi-regular leading-man avatar, as DiCaprio has been for Scorsese, or Denzel Washington has been for Spike Lee. DiCaprio does carry One Battle After Another, but it feels appropriate that he may not grab that baton in his 50s. Anderson seems aware that leading men, even all-time greats, can only take you so far.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.