THE MASTER-- 2 STARS

For this writer, Paul Thomas Anderson is a divisive tough sell.  His movies, while technically sound and visually sharp, can frequently feel tiresome, bizarre, and vague to me.  For many critics and cinephiles, those adjectives make him a courageous, risk-tasking genius instead.  Such can be granted, but, with apologies, his nature and results can still make him exactly the former: tiresome, bizarre, and vague. The Master perpetuates that split sentiment.

Anderson’s latest film, the heavily hyped and highly regarded The Master follows the downward spiral and sputtering distinction of previous resume. Starting with a great thought-provoking topic, dynamic characters, and striking performances, the ingredients are there for greatness.  However, after that, very little of what is attempted and executed works to resonate beyond banality.

To interpret The Master as simply, it becomes one of very few movies that go so many places without really going anywhere.  For this writer, only a handful of films that claim to have volumes to say go on to not offer anything pertinent or memorable beyond craft. Two 2011 films behaved in that way and they were Lars von Trier’s end-of-the-world drama Melancholia and effusive befuddlement, frustration, and disdain that was Terence Mallick’s The Tree of Life. Both were well-made big ideas that went nowhere for hours.

The Master follows suit and joins that befuddlement club.  IToronto-based writer Louis Plamondon, a.k.a. The Sleepy Skunk, a Facebook friend and movie peer of mine, might have said it best when he called The Master "the most well-crafted and well-acted bad movie ever made."  He ain’t wrong.  He was able to see the film at the Toronto Film Festival and his full review is a great read.

Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix, ending his fake retirement, stars as Freddie Quell, a wayward gaunt mess of a drifter.  A slacker Navy veteran of the second World War, he finished his service under unsuccessful mental treatment at the V.A. and his only useful talent appears to be distilling moonshine from any available dangerous and odd liquids and chemicals.  Failing every job he tries and on the run in 1950, the violent and alcoholic Freddie sneaks aboard a San Francisco yacht hosting a lavish party.  The vessel is hosted by the decadent Lancaster Dodd, played by Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman.  The cruise hosts a large gathering of family and friends for his daughter's wedding and a long vacation through the Panama Canal to New York.

Upon discovering Freddie as a stowaway, the accepting Dodd introduces himself as a writer, doctor, nuclear physicist, theoretical philosopher, and a man.  Seeing Freddie's fragile mental makeup, Dodd offers to help him with his beliefs.  Lancaster Dodd is the founder and leader of "The Cause," a growing order of both ordinary and influential people who believe in past lives, the trillion year history of the soul and the universe, and other powerful connections between people.  His followers call him "The Master."  His methodology of inclusion is called "processing," which involves rigorous interviews, deep therapy sessions, and unorthodox mental training.  Lancaster's closest confidant and kindred spirit for the "The Cause" and its operations is his steely wife Peggy, played by three-time Academy Award nominee Amy Adams.  Throughout their extended time together at sea, Dodd draws inspiration from Freddie, while Freddie himself starts to free some of his demons.

Following the cruise, Freddie remains with Dodd and his following, inserting himself as Lancaster's protege and as the deputized bully to those outsiders who would question or challenge "The Cause" as a wildly misguided cult.  As their time together continues, so does Freddie's bizarre and difficult indoctrination into Lancaster's way of thinking.  

It's from here that the movie, more and more, begins to drift.  It feels like Paul Thomas Anderson kept throwing original ideas together, none of which stick very well, until he ran out of them.  If all he was trying to do was make something like Scientology look weird, crazy, and misguided, than he made a movie that matches those qualities. You wait for nearly two-and-a-half hours for a revelation, comeuppance, or denouement to arrive for either Freddie, Lancaster, or both and none of those story elements ever come.  

According to many big-wig critics, The Master requires multiple viewings to comprehend.  There are times that’s not good enough, and this feels like one of them.  Multiple viewings of a film are fine to appreciate and discover layers from what was enjoyed and impressive the first time.  However, one shouldn't need multiple viewings to "get" the purpose.  That just shows you failed the first time with any intended “ah-ha” moment.

Harsh criticism aside, hat tips are warranted for the performances of the lead actors.  Whether he's really crazy or really acting, Joaquin Phoenix is something to see.  His polarizing portrayal of this lost man is something difficult to picture another actor (Jeremy Renner was initially attached to play Freddie) of his age and caliber to equally achieve.  Whether he's really serious or really focused, Philip Seymour Hoffman is also extremely good as "The Master."  His enigmatic presence and easy-going charisma fit the qualities needed to play a man armed with snake oil to pour down people's ears.  Both men have to be considered legitimate Oscar contenders for the lead and supporting male acting awards.  Not to be lost among the men, Amy Adams does a fine job as the hardened and dominant wife.  You can definitely expect her name to be on a short list with four other peers next February as well.

After the performances, strong compliments go towards the look and style of the film.  Like all of Anderson's films, it's a flawlessly sharp-looking work of cinema.  Without a doubt, it completely nails the 1950s period details.  The costume design from Mark Bridges and production creations from Jack Fisk and David Crank are all top-notch and layer The Master with a seamlessly created setting away from the present.  The odd musical score from Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood is a little too much, but the first-rate epic 65mm cinematography of relative newcomer Mihai Malaimare, Jr. saturates the screen with huge imagery to explore.  

The Master, like There Will Be Blood, will be remembered and nominated in technical categories like these to match its acting talent.  Still, the film's technical panache and courageous acting cannot save a bomb of a plot.  It is understandable movies like The Master, Melancholia, The Tree of Life, or There Will Be Blood are allowed to be difficult challenges to comprehend.  Good films are allowed to do that, but, in the end you have to have a point and purpose.  Those two elements are hard to find among the ambitious ideas of Paul Thomas Anderson's film.  Just because you try to be weird and challenge doesn't make you great.  It just makes you weird.

LESSON #1: THE REAL TROUBLES OF POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER--  The scary thing about this is that Freddie had PTSD even before his time serving in World War II.  Repeated failures with jobs and women afterwards only make it worse.  He's got more issues than Sports Illustrated and it's a sad thing to watch.

LESSON #2: BEING ABOVE ANIMALISTIC DEVICES-- Beyond the PTSD, Freddie is a socially-inept, rage-driven, immature, and untamed "animal" in many ways.  We witness his actions early on and Dodd catches on to this.  He seeks to train Freddie to rise and evolve past those crude tendencies.  The task is not an easy one and Peggy and others question if Freddie is beyond help.

LESSON #3: THE APPEAL OF INDEPENDENT FOLLOWINGS AND CULTS-- Much is being made publicly about The Master's supposedly thinly-veiled strikes at Scientology.  Like all religion, to each his own, making that discussion fit for another time than a movie review.  Still, the film and its detailed scenes of methodology and indoctrination with Freddie and Lancaster pull the curtain back at the appeal and draw that followings and cults have for the lost and eager.  There's definitely a gap between the gullibility, skepticism, and blind commitment.

LESSON #4: DEFENDING YOUR BELIEFS-- No matter what belief, deity, religion, path, faith, or cause you hold dear and commit to, you are bound to experience a few challenges with your choice or calling.  No matter what, on some level, you will have to defend your beliefs to those who don't understand, question, devalue, or oppose your doctrine.  How you defend yourself not only defines your chosen belief system, but also you as a person.