Paul Thomas Anderson always makes big movies. Sometimes they’re big in scope, as with “There Will Be Blood” or “Boogie Nights.” But in those films or in “Magnolia” and “Punch-Drunk Love,” Anderson’s turf is the unspoken truth that lives inside his characters’ heads.
His newest, “The Master,” the season’s first Oscar contender, is equally immense while paradoxically being tucked into a specific corner of the American psyche. This superb, cerebral film about unchecked belief is a fictionalized and cutting drama hinging on the origins of Scientology. Scratch around a bit, though, and its wider indictments become clear.
In 1950, Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) certainly seems forward-thinking when first encountered by Freddy Quell (Joaquin Phoenix). Freddy is a twitchy World War II veteran whose life after the Navy seems rootless until, while hiding on a boat, he’s discovered by Dodd, his wife Peggy (Amy Adams) and followers of Dodd’s pseudo-scientific religion, called the Cause.
The charismatic Dodd is a writer, self-styled adventurer and unlikely philosopher. He takes Freddy in as a bodyguard-cum-guinea-pig for “techniques” Dodd claims will lead the way to an advanced future. He promises to rid followers of the muck of past lives.
The rough-edged Freddy, however, is oddly impenetrable. He obeys Dodd, his mentor, yet he disappoints as an acolyte. When their inevitable rift comes, it diminishes one while helping the other see the future’s possibilities.
As in writer-director Anderson’s other work, the acting in “The Master” mesmerizes. Hoffman, his face furnished with a debonair moustache, is again perfect to the bone. His Dodd is equal parts charlatan and showman, and both his smile and his sneer are things to avoid. Pulling his strings is Peggy, a smiling satire of domesticity whom Adams makes as cold-blooded as a Philco fridge.
Phoenix gives the performance of his career. Forget whatever weirdness he’s done in the past; Freddy is his masterpiece of quirk. Gaunt and round-shouldered — the actor resembles Montgomery Clift in his post-car-accident roles — Freddy is stooped from his war experiences. Phoenix lets us see how the grief and fear eased by being part of a movement never completely goes away.
While it dissects how a sci-fi writer’s notions became that movement, the film wonders about the human need for clarity. Flash-forward to our current fascination with Scientology and celebrity, and watch “The Master” show the way.
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