THE MASTER (2012)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
"The Master" is the most frustrating, exasperatingly opaque film of P.T. Anderson's career. At times emotionally draining and emotionally cold, "The Master" never fully establishes itself and it never hits the high notes of its very ambitious themes. That being said, "The Master" offers a lot of food for thought and is often rather brilliant, and sometimes simply offputting and a little overlong (even "Magnolia," P.T's best film that ran 3 hours didn't feel as long as this one that runs an hour less). But it is Joaquin Phoenix who will leave you feeling far more frustrated than P.T. Anderson might have intended and that is the film's ultimate flaw.
Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) is a emotionally crippling and horny WWII vet who is left to fend for himself and discover what the future holds, or if it holds anything in particular. Quell is an alcoholic lost soul (he concocts a drink using paint thinner) who parades from one job, one drink and one woman after another. He is a seaman, works as a migrant farm worker, a department store family portrait photographer, and eventually he finds himself as a stowaway in a yacht. It turns out that Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is in this yacht, acting as a minister for a wedding and reception. Dodd is also the founder of a new religion called The Cause (obviously meant to evoke Scientology and its own creator, L. Ron Hubbard) where he indulges new participants in a recorded session of repeated questions such as "What is your name?" and "Did you ever kill anyone?" Quell participates and lives "rent free," along with Dodd and his wife Peggy (Amy Adams), in the homes of women who support the Cause. But Freddie is as lost as ever, though he acts as muscle for Dodd's non-believers or those who challenge the Master's book.
My main quibble with "The Master" is Joaquin Phoenix whose misshapen body language and catatonic persona reduced my interest a little. For a short film about a WWII vet undergoing disillusionment and dissatisfaction, Phoenix would have been mesmerizing. At 2 hours and 17 minutes, it is simply a chore to watch Freddie who engages in sex or humping a nude sand figure, stares and laughs maniacally or indulges in uncontrollably violent confrontations. The performance has two notes and maintains it even when he may be changed by Dodd's "processing" through the Cause but I can't say for sure if he is remotely changed at all. A fine actor overall, Phoenix aims for a level of restraint during the film's closing scenes that goes beyond what he had shown in the first two hours. That may be too little and too late for most viewers.
Philip Seymour Hoffman brings humor, a slight touch of sympathy, lightness and the occasional outburst particularly when his movement is criticized for suggesting outrageous claims, such as claim that Earth was created a trillion years ago. Hoffman is indeed mesmerizing as a the founder of a religion he is clearly making it up as he indulges further into his subjects - he is a charlatan and knows how to control those he processes. It is a frighteningly vivid and top-notch performance.
Various scenes and shots in "The Master" will stay with me for a long time such as the motorcycle endlessly rampaging through the desert; the ocean's waters that look mysterious and uninviting; the somehow askew wedding and reception on the yacht; the moments where Dodd relentlessly tests Freddy with clinical trials that make no sense whatsoever such as walking from one end of a room to the other; Amy Adams' compassion and smile masking a far more firm individual than her own husband; the models in a department store, etc. Yet as intoxicating as many scenes are, the overall effect is deadening and too coldly detached. P.T. Anderson may be trying for a touch of Michelangelo Antonioni ambiguity but even Antonioni could wring emotion out of dead silence and sustained long takes. Every time I saw Freddie, I saw a catatonic lost soul from a war that may have ravaged his psyche. That is a realistic angle but I can only handle so much catatonia with no shades or glimmer of anything other than suppressed anguish, or a need for a father figure though that angle is disputable.
"The Master" is indelibly fascinating and spellbinding and worth a look but it is also dramatically inert - a bit of a Catch-22.
