Political satire in a fraught year

The ambitious One Battle After Another stars A-listers Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro

- Kyle Buchanan

Leonardo DiCaprio in One Battle After Another.

(PHOTO: WBEI)

September is traditionally the month when Hollywood segues from action films to awards-season prestige fare. But what if a movie could be both?

In fact, what if a September movie could be a whole lot of things - not just an Oscar contender with car chases, but also an up-to-the-minute political satire and a father-daughter buddy picture?

Enter One Battle After Another, the ambitious new film from American writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood, 2007; Phantom Thread, 2017), which opens in Singapore cinemas on Sept 25.

Film studio Warner Bros has delivered original hits like Sinners and Weapons in 2025, but Hollywood is watching closely to see if that hot streak will extend to this pricey auteur project, which reportedly cost more than US$140 million (S$180 million).

Loosely inspired by the 1990 novel Vineland by American author Thomas Pynchon, One Battle After Another stars American actor Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob, an explosives expert with the radical revolutionary group the French 75.

As he embarks on covert missions alongside the fiery Perfidia (Teyana Taylor) and the more measured Deandra (Regina Hall), Bob and Perfidia fall in love and have a daughter, Willa.

But Perfidia’s entanglement with the ruthless Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) puts the French 75 in jeopardy and forces Bob to go on the run with his infant.

Many years later, Bob is living under an assumed name in the sleepy town of Baktan Cross, raising a now teenage Willa (Chase Infiniti, in her film debut).

Paranoid and often stoned, Bob warns a sceptical Willa to stay alert in case of attack, and he is right to worry. Lockjaw is still hunting them, convinced that their capture could gain him entry into a secretive, well-heeled group of white supremacists who improbably call themselves the Christmas Adventurers.