Leonardo DiCaprio as Bob Ferguson in a scene from "One Battle After Another." (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.Pictures)
A strong sense of time and place. When it comes to movies that aim to evoke a certain mood or capture a specific way of seeing the world, enveloping viewers in settings so fully realized that you feel transported is half the battle.
Two new releases currently out in theaters, just as summer has given way to fall, couldn't be more diametrically opposed. One is a muscular epic with a starry cast and deafening awards season buzz. The other is a more reined-in affair, an understated romance tastefully brought from the page to the screen. One proclaims its ideas in a booming voice and hurtles forward like a runaway train. The other speaks in hushed tones and takes you on a leisurely stroll across years and oceans.
It's a busy time for movie buffs, with prestigious film festivals about to give us a taste of the movies angling to cause a stir between now and Oscar night. The 63rd New York Film Festival kicks off this weekend. Here in South Florida, OUTshine Film Festival has just revealed its eclectic fall lineup, and we're just days away from finding out what high-profile contenders will be screened as part of Miami Film Festival GEMS beginning late next month.
But you only need to glance at the local movie listings to discover there are so many new movies coming out, you can create your own personal movie showcase. Do these two titles have what it takes to make an impression and go the distance in this crowded field? Let's take a closer look.
Chase Infiniti as Willa Ferguson and Regina Hall as Deandra in a scene from "One Battle After Another." (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros Pictures.)
“One Battle After Another”: Her request is simple, but he feels the pressure. “I need you to create a show. Impress me.” Amped up but bewildered, the explosives expert feels like he's in over his head, but putting on a show is something he knows he can do. Even when he's surrounded by a group of nonconformists on the U.S.-Mexico border. About to break a dozen laws.
So the explosives expert puts on a show. He impresses. So does Paul Thomas Anderson.
The “Boogie Nights” and “Phantom Thread” auteur aims to entertain while making you reflect on pressing issues that dominate the headlines every time you turn on the news. It's a tall order, and by golly, he pulls it off. He's whipped up a five-course meal that never lets up, in the best possible way. The filmmaker's tenth feature, a powder keg with confidence for days, is all that and a bag of chips.
The explosives expert (Leonardo DiCaprio) comes through and does what Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor) asked of him. Who's Perfidia Beverly Hills? She's a queen among revolutionaries, Black and powerful, the cargo pants-wearing fire driving the French 75. Their transgression, involving some detained undocumented migrants, catches the eye of Uncle Sam. But before these anti-establishment outlaws feel the long arm of the law, after they make their getaway in an unassuming Buick station wagon, Anderson wants to show you the fireworks after the fireworks. This revolution is horny, and it comes with a dash of Blaxsploitation.
Danger isn't far behind for the French 75 (no, really, no one is safe), but rather than simply lock into the nervy momentum of a political thriller, Anderson oscillates between thrills, domestic discord, goofy laughs and, when push comes to shove, spectacular car chases down treacherous roads. It's an ambitious tonal high-wire act that the film's (rather mundane) trailers can't begin to properly convey.
Anderson conjures up a totally screwed-up, not particularly romantic triangle pitting DiCaprio's infatuated slacker against Col. Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn, terrific), the sociopath in uniform tasked with bringing down the French 75, with Perfidia, and her ravenous sexual appetites, standing in the middle. It's a combustible mix that plays like a twisted rom-com with a body count.
Benicio del Toro as Sensei Sergio St. Carlos in a scene from "One Battle After Another." (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
But the bulk of “One Battle After Another,” which is inspired by Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel "Vineland," takes place 16 years after that fateful night on the border, with Perfidia out of the picture. That explosives expert, now with a new name, Bob Ferguson, has aged into a burnout pothead with an ornery streak and crippling paranoia. And, oh yes, he's raising a teenager, Willa (Chase Infiniti in a star-making turn), who displays some of her mom's moxie. A cat-and-mouse game unfolds that will put this father-daughter bond to the ultimate test.
But the ordeal also sends a guardian angel Bob's way, in the form of everyday hero Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), Willa's martial arts instructor and the mastermind behind an underground railroad of new arrivals from the other side of the border. Sergio is an oasis of calm in the midst of the dust storm of chaos that swirls around Bob wherever he goes, yang to Bob's high-strung yin. Del Toro is the movie's secret weapon, and the “Traffic” actor appears to be having the time of his life staying cool as a cucumber as he takes on a steady stream of stumbling blocks.
In “One Battle After Another,” Anderson perfects one skillfully staged set piece after another, and the energy never flags. The film, shot in the VistaVision format that Brady Corbet opted for when making “The Brutalist,” is long, just over two hours and 40 minutes with the end credits, but there isn't a single wasted frame. It throws white supremacists with clout, trigger-happy nuns, entire conversations in unsubtitled Spanish and an assassin in a Lacoste polo into the mix, yet it never feels disjointed or unwieldy. Its humor is sometimes dry but never unkind toward the characters. Its violence is startling but never excessive. At times, it plays like the best Quentin Tarantino movie that Quentin Tarantino never made. At others, it suggests what a neo-Western directed by Stanley Kubrick would look and feel like. It's even reminiscent of Steven Spielberg's “Munich” in its portrayal of good people living with a target on their backs. (Uncle Steven is reportedly a fan.)
Teyana Taylor as Perfidia Beverly Hills in a scene from "One Battle After Another." (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)
In the twenty-eight years since Anderson made a splash with “Boogie Nights,” his kaleidoscopic, disco-flavored sophomore effort, it has been a pleasure to witness his evolution from precocious wunderkind to wiser, but still youthful, middle-aged raconteur. “One Battle After Another” is propelled by his remarkably assured storytelling. Its ace in the hole is the way this deeply satisfying opus bends polarizing subject matter in the shape of a touching story of paternal devotion. Its target audience: one demographic after another, eager to be shown a good time. Anderson delivers, with an exhilarating dose of pure cinema. Hop in and hold on tight.
Josh O'Connor as David White in a scene from "The History of Sound." (Photo courtesy of MUBI)
“The History of Sound”: He hears the familiar chords like a siren song at the end of a long tunnel. Lionel Worthing, the boy who could see music, is now a young man making his own way in Boston, the Kentucky farm where he grew up far from his thoughts.
At least until this night circa 1917, when the bespectacled Southerner is compelled to find the source of this taste of home in, of all places, a Beantown pub: a voice at the piano singing a folk song, a good one. The pianist looks up, big ears and a wistful smile. It sounds like a “meet cute” for a sweet period romance, but the latest film from South African filmmaker Oliver Hermanus (“Moffie,” the Starz limited series “Mary & George”) isn't quite your basic queer love story. Think “Brokeback Mountain,” only just as interested in shepherding as in two cowboys in love.
Lionel (Paul Mescal) and David White (Josh O'Connor), both of them students at the New England Conservatory of Music, say hello, and they click, not just because of a mutual attraction, but because of a shared love of these homespun melodies. “The History of Sound,” adapted by Ben Shattuck from his short story, has a leg up over many costume dramas of its ilk in the way that the author eschews the tortured self-loathing one associates with depictions of same-sex affection in times when it was frowned upon at best, a prosecutable offense at worst.
“Look,” Hermanus and Shattuck tell us, “these pasty, good-looking guys spend the night together. No fuss, no muss. Just exquisite copulating. That we don't really feel like lingering on, because let's get a move on.”
If anything, “The History of Sound” could have used a little more of that willingness to get going. It glides on at a deliberate pace, spending a mite too long admiring its scenery. This is a piece of porcelain, so delicate you're afraid it will dissolve into sunlit daffodils if you breathe too loud. And yet, to its credit, it's also more interested in how this couple's minds intertwine than in how their pale bodies look when they're together.
Paul Mescal as Lionel Worthing in a scene from "The History of Sound." (Photo courtesy of MUBI)
World War I separates the men, but David emerges with a post-war proposal: accompany him on a tour of rural Maine to record these songs for posterity using wax cylinders. What ensues is a portrait of a relationship in miniature, an extended summer trip that lays bare a darkness in David that doesn't cancel out the love he feels for Lionel. The series of events that befall these lovers/music ethnographers, good and bad, don't break new ground, but Hermanus and Shattuck handle the narrative with such intelligence and care that I didn't much mind it treads familiar territory.
Mescal and O'Connor are both in fine form; their engrossing, low-key performances carry you over the poky spots. But the film's most valuable asset is its evocation of the 1910s and '20s. Kudos to cinematographer Alexander Dynan and especially to production designer Deborah Jensen for their sterling, vividly transporting work. A gold star to Hermanus as well for not just capturing the time period, but paying attention to the characters' body language, the way they carry themselves, which comes across as too contemporary in too many costume dramas but here feels at once formal and lived in.
Meticulous attention to detail, lyrical imagery, a strong cast whipped up into shape. Yup, “The History of Sound” plays like a feature-length homage to the films of Merchant Ivory (“A Room with a View,” “Howards End”), though I'm fairly certain James Ivory would have given us more carnal abandon. Not that I'm complaining, because Hermanus saves the best for last: Chris Cooper, ideally cast as an eighty-something Lionel, as the film takes you forward in time and ends on a note of such piercing heartache that it broke me. You want to pick up “History” and cradle it, shield it from the detractors who are unmoved by it.
Paul Mescal as Lionel Worthing and Emma Canning as Clarissa Roux in a scene from "The History of Sound." (Photo courtesy of MUBI)
That devastating final scene encapsulates what's striking about this plaintive romance. It's a lament for what's been lost that's clear-eyed enough to say life still goes on, all while paying tribute to those people who waltz into your life and change it for the better. The ones who blow through like a gentle breeze on a late spring afternoon. And then they're gone.
“One Battle After Another” is now showing in wide release across South Florida, including IMAX engagements at Regal South Beach, AMC Aventura 24, CMX Dolphin 19 and AMC Pembroke Lakes 9. It is also showing in IMAX 70mm at the AutoNation IMAX at the Museum of Discovery and Science in downtown Fort Lauderdale. You'll need to hurry if you'd like to catch “The History of Sound” on the big screen. It's showing over the next several days at AMC Sunset Place 24 in South Miami and AMC DINE-IN Coral Ridge 10 in Fort Lauderdale. Showtimes are limited.
