OVP: The Master (2012)

Film: The Master (2012)
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Laura Dern
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Oscar History: 3 nominations (Best Actor-Joaquin Phoenix, Supporting Actor-Philip Seymour Hoffman, S. Actress-Amy Adams)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

The film of Paul Thomas Anderson are not movies that you want to react to immediately-they're the sorts of films that you want to savor, to taste again and come back to and recall vividly years later.  I still find myself remembering some brilliant turn in Boogie Nights or some flourish hidden within There Will Be Blood or some redeeming factor in Magnolia, which I did not enjoy in my viewing of it a few years back (Punch Drunk Love and Hard Eight have not been seen yet, but they've been added to the Netflix queue as of this morning, as I'm nothing if not a completist).  This is all to say that it's difficult to put into words my feelings regarding The Master right after I've seen it as history has shown I find more and more to discover with PTA's films with more distance between them, but as is our purpose on this blog, I'll attempt to share my thoughts with this review.

(Spoilers abound throughout the review) The film is not one of those movies that you can easily summarize, and so instead I'll describe the film as it comes to me, which is appropriate, because that seems to be the way that PTA is telling the story.  Though chronological, the film seems to come in waves, and we are introduced first to Joaquin Phoenix, a World War II veteran who is suffering from PTSD, though you have this feeling that he has always been a little off-in-the-head, and we are given Phoenix's best impression of Brando's mumbling rambles in the first few opening scenes.  I cannot possibly be the only person who secretly wished for subtitles in a couple of Phoenix's scenes, but one cannot say that he doesn't commit to the character.  His Freddie Quell is a man who has completely lost his way, and is less a man of in search of a purpose than a man who simply doesn't need one.  He takes photos for a living, but that only works briefly in a tense encounter at a department store where he attacks a man with little to no provocation.  He then finds himself, extremely randomly, boarding a ship.  In one of the many, many beautiful shots within the film, the knowing audience can actually see quite clearly the blurry outlines of Adams and Hoffman as Phoenix is boarding the boat, a confident cue from Anderson that we are entering the second act of the story.

The second act moves Freddie from being the protagonist to being the object of wanting, because make no mistake-there's a love story happening between Freddie and Hoffman's Lancaster Dodd, even if it's not a romantic or sexual love.  It's a love of the mirror that Freddie casts back to Dodd, and more specifically Dodd's ego.  For Lancaster Dodd is a man who desperately needs people to believe him, to revere him, to need him, and Freddie, so impressionable and damaged, is the perfect candidate.  In one of the film's most hold-your-breath scenes, Freddie is given a test by Dodd, a series of seemingly inane, but increasingly personal questions that Freddie answers without hesitation, even if the lack of hesitation doesn't discount that he is lying throughout some of the sentences.  Dodd, clearly a studier of human hesitation, calmly and repetitively berates the truth out of him, until by the end of the scene Freddie is begging for more questions, and Dodd knows that this is the follower he has been hoping for, the man who will give his complete blind faith to him.

Since this is clearly where the Scientology element has entered, I want to make sure that I give this comparison its due.  I know that a lot of hay has been made about the film's link to Scientology, which from the little I know of Scientology (which is admittedly a composite of Wikipedia entries and Vanity Fair articles), I can see the resemblance-the stress on levels, on past lives, on believing absolutely and without any doubt.  It would be far more provocative to admit that there's some of those elements in nearly all religions, but the realm of thetan levels and aliens probably is the target of the film's many jibes about The Cause, as the film refers to Dodd's movement.  Either way, the social commentary is titillating for publicists and journalists trying to discuss the film, but is neither here nor there when it comes to the quality of the film (which is vast).

The film slowly progresses as Freddie turns himself over completely to Dodd's cause, but the demons that he has growing inside of him-alcoholism, violent tendencies, and a deep-seeded love for a girl named Doris-keep festering, and Dodd's wife (played by Adams), insists that Freddie either quit drinking and devote himself to the Cause, or leave forever.  We are then greeted by a series of scenes where Phoenix is being mentally broken down, trying to feel something against a wall, and being mentally harassed through exercises where he is forced to listen to a man he increasingly dislikes (Dodd's son-in-law) harass him about his intelligence and his love for Doris.  All of this leads to a rather convenient breakthrough, which it appears only Dodd himself sees (a cleverly played scene), but clearly does little to stifle Phoenix's rage, as he is soon attacking a man over his doubts about Dodd's latest book.  In the final scenes of the movie, we see that Freddie has grown enough to leave the Cause, but not before realizing that the girl he had hoped to come home to, Doris, has long since married and started a family, as the vivid memories Freddie harbored for her are in fact seven years old, and he has been away far longer than he (or the audience) has realized.  We are left with an image of Freddie back beside a bare-breasted female sand sculpture, wondering if he is better, what his fate is, or whether he has changed at all.

The film relies deeply on the interplay between its two main protagonists, and few could argue that Phoenix and Hoffman have a striking chemistry.  Neither actor is one that I particularly love, but that doesn't mean I can't full appreciate the fire that they're bringing to the screen.  It's arguable even who gets the showier role or comes out on-top (this is an Oscar-oriented blog, after all), as Phoenix, so damaged and constantly a live wire,  is such a different performance than Hoffman's mellow, inadequate-below-the-surface con man.  We've discussed some of Phoenix's best scenes already, but Hoffman gets an extraordinary one toward the end of the film when he is casually questioned by one of his most devoted followers (played in a brief and memorable cameo by Laura Dern) and finally loses his temper when she points out an inconsistency in his beliefs that he finds difficult to explain.  It's one of the only times that we see real evidence that Hoffman is clearly making this up as he's going along, but the astounding thing is that his most devoted followers neither notice nor care.  Also worth noting is Amy Adams impressive work as Hoffman's wife.  Adams, an actress I think is constantly underestimated, makes us question who is indeed the film's title character more than once as she forcefully commands her husband on several occasions.  This is not a woman who is beholden to any followers, she is simply beholden to going forward with the "work" of the Cause.  During a wildly...we'll go with icky for lack of a stronger term...scene in front of a scene, we see the princess from Enchanted give her husband a hand job while domineering what his next move in the Cause will be.  So smart is Adams' character, you are left wondering whether she's truly a believer, or whether she's simply found a gold mine in her husband's many followers-some way for her to live a life higher than that of the wife of a struggling author and scorned academic.  There's been some debate over whether Hoffman will market himself as a lead or a supporting performer at the Oscars, but to me there's little doubt that this is a two-lead film, and both would be most appropriately campaigned as lead actors.  Either way, it's difficult to see an Oscar race without Phoenix, Hoffman, and Adams all in the running, if not actually nominated.

And with that, I'm turning this over to you-what did you think of The Master?  Where does it fall in your personal PTA rankings?  Do you think anyone should be practicing their Oscar speeches?  And what subject should Anderson cover next when the filmmaker gets around to making another film in a decade or so?