One Battle After Another

Let The Revolution Begin

Despite its title, you won’t find a more non-repetitive film than Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. From the opening shot featuring revolutionary vigilante “Perfidia Beverly Hills” (Teyana Taylor) and her fellow radicals getting ready to free Latino immigrants being imprisoned in an ICE facility, we’re all in, and the film never lets up for a second on its intensity. If I’ve made Anderson’s “Magnum Opus” sound dark and despairing, you may find yourselves surprised to discover it’s a comedy. It never tries too hard to be anything in particular. It just IS. 

One Battle After Another begins on the highest moments of success for the left-wing revolutionary group “The French 75”—an avenging paradise of combat, fellowship, and love. A chosen family of outcasts, all united with the same goal. The fairy tale comes crashing down when Perfidia is arrested after a failed bank robbery, and the white supremacist Col. Steven Lockjaw (Sean Penn), who is completely infatuated with her, convinces her to rat out her tribe of warriors. The disgraced Perfidia escapes to Mexico, but many of her friends are murdered by the government, and the betrayal forces those remaining to also change their identities and run off to a fresh start. 

One of these unlucky members is Perfidia’s former lover Pat Calhoun (Leonardo DiCaprio), who lovingly but overprotectively raises the baby girl “Charlene” (AKA Wila) Perfidia birthed from Lockjaw as his own. Sixteen years later, Lockjaw receives a potential recruitment into “The Christmas Adventurers Club,” a ridiculous secret society of white supremacists. Looking to dispose of any evidence that he fathered a mixed-race child, he sets out to kill Pat and Charlene, who are living under the alias “Bob & Willa Ferguson.” 

Willa (Chase Infiniti) is extracted by revolutionary Deandra (Regina Hall) at a school dance, who brings her to a haven at a nunnery operating as a front. Meanwhile, Poor Pat is having a harder time as he can’t remember the passcode to the revolution’s hotline, making for some truly hilarious moments. He seeks assistance from Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), who runs an Underground Railroad system for the California immigration community. Johnny Greenwood’s brilliant score becomes tingly and whimsical as Sergio calmly deals with all the chaos surrounding him. He also happens to be Willa’s Martial Arts instructor, which of course makes for many adorable moments where he bows forward with his hands pressed together. The mixture of his peaceful mannerisms alongside all the chaos is both hilarious and tender. 

Willa’s dishonesty about having a phone leads to Lockjaw closing in on the nunnery, leading to a “Godfather” worthy showdown that will surely go down in cinema history. That it takes place under the boiling sun of the California desert highways is simply a bonus. If “No Country for Old Men” were a comedy, it’d be a fair comparison. 

The cast ensemble is a dynamite of excellence. Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti are the beautiful, broken, bleeding, beating hearts of this unexpectedly profound American Fairy Tale. I always try to look for the Fairy Tale elements in every film, and Anderson’s best work of his entire career is one where I didn’t have to look very far for them. 

Seeing Leonardo DiCaprio and Regina Hall pass a laundry basket with baby Charlene as they pack up the car, amongst preparing to go on the run, one can’t help but think of the good fairies from Sleeping Beauty carrying baby Aurora as they disappear into the night. Sean Penn’s racist vanity and self-importance make him a parallel to the evil queen, and Chase Infiniti’s “Snow White” has no problem fighting back; however, she has to. She has that ethereal grace of nature and beauty, but underneath lies the gritted teeth of an enraged warrior ready to pounce on her prey and give comeuppance to the enemy. 

The devastating ICE camps, economically struggling towns, and desert wastelands of America make for a fractured kingdom continuously under an evil sovereign's reign and agenda. Despite all the vital humor onboard this grand ship of a film, its proximity to our politically devastated times is impossible to overlook as One Battle After Another charges through its troubled waters unapologetically. But this is not a film about enlightening its audiences. It’s a scream on a mountain top. It’s an exhale upon reaching the surface after swimming through an underwater tunnel. It’s a fist punching into the flesh of evil of the most powerful kind. And it is bold and beautiful to behold. 

This is an extraordinary story of the violence of human indifference and the comeuppance of that violence. It’s a scream of praise towards the beauty and divine majesty of revolution and the art of finally declaring “Enough”. The very title “One Battle After Another” is reminiscent of “Once Upon A Time”. Ladies and gentlemen, Paul Thomas Anderson presents you a fairy tale that I strongly suspect will dominate at the top level this awards season. Let the revolution begin. 

One Battle After Another. (2025). Academy Theatre PDX. https://academytheaterpdx.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/poster-17-scaled.jpg