‘One Battle After Another’ embraces political ideas that are distractingly timely, critic says

The movie “One Battle After Another” opens on an immigrant detention facility on the U.S.-Mexico border. An armed revolutionary group that calls itself the French 75 is preparing a raid to free the captured migrants and transport them into the United States.

Their plan works — but not before one of the French 75’s operatives, a Black woman calling herself Perfidia Beverly Hills, sparks a romantic connection with one of the military officials guarding the detention center. The official — a white colonel named Stephen J. Lockjaw — becomes obsessed with Perfidia — who is also in a romantic relationship with a fellow member of the French 75, a man known as Bob Ferguson.

Colonel Lockjaw ends up catching Perfidia in the midst of another one of the French 75’s operations, but he agrees to let her go if she agrees to spend a romantic evening with him. She agrees. Later, when she discovers she’s pregnant, it’s unclear whether the child was fathered by Lockjaw or Bob.

Sixteen years pass. Bob and Perfidia’s daughter, Willa, are living under assumed names in California. Lockjaw, fearful that his interracial relationship will be discovered, decides to hunt them down.

“One Battle After Another” is a heavy favorite this awards season and recently scored nine Golden Globe nominations. But the movie’s embrace of potent questions about the ideal form of resistance, imperfect revolutionaries and the legacy of racism are jarringly timely — for some, almost distractingly so.

Barbara Vandenburgh, a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle, joined The Show to talk about the film's remarkable resonance.

Full conversation

SAM DINGMAN: So let's talk about the timeliness of this film. How did that land for you? Did it serve your experience or did you find it distracting?

BARBARA VANDENBURGH: Oh, I didn't find it distracting at all. It absolutely served my experience. And furthermore, I think that "One Battle After Another" could be timely whenever it was made, right. Like "One Battle After Another" is a movie that could have been made in the '60s and the '70s and the '80s and the '90s and the aughts, and I think it would have felt just as relevant.

I think it feels particularly relevant to a lot of people now because a lot of people now are just now paying attention to things like some of the themes that the movie is dealing with, some of the issues that it's dealing with, like authoritarianism and what civil resistance, civil disobedience means, what it means to organize within a community.

So I think these are things that people — a lot of people are new to thinking about, but it's always been there.

DINGMAN: Yeah. And we should give the context, I suppose, that it is loosely based on a Thomas Pynchon novel which looked at sort of Reagan-era questions that were similar to this.

VANDENBURGH: Yeah, yeah. "Vineland" by Thomas Pynchon. He's been wanting to do some kind of adaptation. Of course, he's adapted Thomas Pynchon before, Paul Thomas Anderson. "Inherent Vice" is an adaptation of a Thomas Pynchon novel. And "Vineland," I believe, came out in 1990. And it's about 1980s, set in 1980s Reagan's America. But also flashes back to revolutionary efforts during Nixon's 1960s America.

So, I mean, that right there shows you that these are themes and topics in America that are resonant across decades. So, yes, it's incredibly timely. And it's dealing with a lot of things that are in the news that we're discussing person to person, and that a lot of people who have not been politically engaged are starting to think about — maybe for the first time.

But that doesn't mean it hasn't always been there.

DINGMAN: Yeah, well, so I think we should also talk about the film's tone, because some people may be listening to this, hearing that it's about politics and anticipating a sort of broad satirical experience. But that's not necessarily the case, I don't think.

VANDENBURGH: Yeah. Sometimes the film is deadly serious and sometimes it's incredibly absurdist. It doesn't play everything with a straight face. I mean, look at Steven J. Lockjaw, who's played by Sean Penn in the film, is an archvillain. He has a walk that's really distinct. He's wearing T-shirts that are like three sizes too small. He's kind of a ridiculous, a little bit of a pathetic figure, but also very scary at the same time ...

Part of what drives the action in the movie is trying to figure out whether or not he's fathered this interracial child. Because he wants to be part of this Christian white nationalist group that's very exclusive called the Christmas Adventurers Club. And the members of the Christmas Adventurers Club greet each other by saying, "Hail, St. Nick."

... So it's absurdist, but it's also serious because there are Christian white nationalists and there are authoritarian sort of military figures who are doing scary things. So, like, it's very serious, but he's striking in certain parts of the movie, a very absurdist tone.

DINGMAN: Yeah, well, so you mentioned Steven J. Lockjaw and the way that he's portrayed. I think it's worth talking for a moment about the way the military is depicted in this film because that is a very active conversation and cultural life right now, the way the military is being used vis a vis life in American cities. What did you make of Lockjaw and the depiction of the military more broadly?

VANDENBURGH: I mean, it's nothing that I'm not seeing on social media feeds every day. I mean, truly, you're seeing a militarized presence in American cities currently right now. Which makes the movie — not that you haven't seen that in the past, but it's also kind of a prescient movie. It came out in September and so it had been filming, I should think, all the past year.

And now you can't open your social media feed if you're connected, if you're paying attention, without seeing people in military garbs in American cities, ICE raids, rounding up individuals, arresting individuals without cause on the streets. And so I didn't see anything in that film that we're not seeing on social media feeds.

DINGMAN: I mean, that for me is where this whole question that we're talking about sort of comes from, is there are these sequences where you see military action on the streets of American cities and you could be watching CNN. It's like there is no difference between this fictional version of the story and what's actually happening.

But I think we should also talk about the way the film ponders resistance, because we see a violent, ideology-driven version of it in the French 75. We also see a more community-oriented, underground representation of it. There's an immigration activist named Sergio San Carlos in the film. What do you think Anderson wanted us to think about there?

VANDENBURGH: I'm not quite sure, to be honest. I'm still muddling over that myself. You know, I don't know that I would have characterized the French 75's actions as necessarily being violent. I mean, it is extreme in nature. They're doing things like invading — invading is not quite the right word. They're doing things like disrupting detention centers, and they're robbing banks.

I guess that is. I mean, they're doing criminal actions. Right, right. Where it goes off the rails is there's a moment very early in the film — so this isn't a spoiler — but Perfidia does something that she shouldn't do. She harms somebody who is a civilian who she shouldn't be harming.

DINGMAN: And it wasn't part of the plan.

VANDENBURGH: And it wasn't part of the plan. So, you know, it's a powder keg. I see that there is danger there. It is a powder keg. Once you get guns into the equation, anything can happen, including harming innocent people. Even when you think you're one of the good guys, even when you see yourself as part of a resistance.

On the flip side, and I think the reason he's running away with things in these early voting circles, in these early critic groups, Benicio Del Toro's character is starting to win. Benicio Del Toro is starting to win a bunch of Best Supporting Actor accolades from these critic groups. And I thought Sean Penn was gonna run away with it, and that's been a bit of a surprise to me, but a happy surprise.

... And I think it's because he's one of the hearts of the film.

DINGMAN: Yes.

VANDENBURGH: And Benicio Del Toro's tact is entirely different in that it is. He is a community organizer, and he's bringing together groups of people to work together.

DINGMAN: Well, I'm so sorry, Barbara. We are unfortunately out of time. There's obviously a tremendous amount to talk about in this film. Hopefully this conversation has made people wanna check it out. Barbara Vandenberg, member of the Phoenix Film Critics Circle, also manager of communications and events at ASU's Sydney Film School. Barbara, thank you.

VANDENBURGH: My pleasure.