Written and Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Produced by JoAnne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson, Megan Ellison and Daniel Lupi
Director of Photography Mihai Malaimare, Jr.
Production Design by Jack Fisk and David Crank
Edited by Leslie Jones and Peter McNulty
Music by Jonny Greenwood
Eh.
It's always tough giving your opinion of a film by a person who is so obviously...going his own way, so to speak. I definitely can't say that he's unoriginal. Paul Thomas Anderson does not make usual films. And I applaud him for that, even though I will tell you that I've only truly LIKED one of his films in "There Will Be Blood". And I believe the reason why that's the only film in his filmography that I had a very positive reaction to was because it was his most straightforward STORY. It was a film that had one undisputed character and we saw his story.
"The Master" is a movie that even now, writing this review, three weeks after having seen it, I still really don't know what to make of it. And if after all this time, I'm still on the fence, I'm just going to say that it's a movie that has it's moments, but I'm ultimately unable to recommend it.
I think it's pretty clear that P.T. Anderson wants to be the next Kubrick. Everything about "The Master" is technically flawless. Mihai Malaimare, Jr.'s cinematography is absolutely gorgeous. The acting of Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman is fucking brilliant. And sometimes that's enough to make a movie great and recommendable. But unfortunately with Anderson's films a lot of the time, he just makes it too difficult for you to like it. The sheer incoherence of story or structure keeps the film from being great. Now I'm not one of those people that thinks every movie should be explained. Kubrick almost never made movies that, when they were over, you knew exactly what you saw. But Kubrick's films were always well crafted, and most importantly...ENTERTAINING. "Barry Lyndon" is a very long movie. Very long. But for all of Kubrick's famous slow pacing, you just wanted to keep on watching. He had a sense of humor. Only recently after rewatching "The Shining" for the first time in a while, I came to the idea that Kubrick was making a dark comedy with that film. The sheer experience of taking in that movie was enough to make you feel good, even though the famous last shot of Jack Nicholson in the picture from 1921 was like "what the fuck?!"
To me, it seems like Paul Thomas Anderson wants to be the next Kubrick, but he isn't. I think he's closer to a Terrence Malick. And that's a guy whose films I CAN'T STAND!
-T.B.
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