The Master (2012)

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Rami Malek, Jesse Plemons, Laura Dern, Ambyr Childers, Christopher Evan Welch, Kevin J. O’Connor, Lena Endre, Madisen Beaty, Amy Ferguson. [R]

Rudderless loner Freddie Quell (Phoenix), formerly a sailor from the second World War and now a surly, sex-starved iconoclast, encounters Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman), the founder of a cultish, quasi-philosophical movement known as The Cause. He’s welcomed into the leader’s “family,” and Freddie is eager to be given direction and purpose and comfort, but his trauma and temper cannot be so easily solved by flimsy parlor psychology, and the two men don’t exactly fit together like jigsaw pieces. Ambitiously complex effort from writer/director Anderson can be a cerebral (at times, even opaque) challenge, but it’s conceived and crafted as a “big idea labyrinth” that will invariably spellbind anyone willing to ferret out its parallels and themes. Resists traditional filmmaking tenets to varying degrees of success—the disjointed storytelling is a flaw, but the lack of catharsis is a strength—yet it manages to triumph in so many different arenas, from its superb performances to the feisty allusions to Scientology and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, that the film begs for study and debate. And even if one ultimately decides it all means nothing, there’s no reason not to savor the sensory pleasures of Mihai Mălaimare Jr.’s panoramic photography and Jonny Greenwood’s unorthodox score. Last of five collaborations between Anderson and Hoffman, as it was the director’s final film completed in the actor’s lifetime.

87/100