Released to theaters nationwide on Sept. 26, “One Battle After Another” is the newest work from legendary American filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson. The film is far and away his most ambitious. Loosely based on the novel “Vineland” by postmodernist author Thomas Pynchon, the nearly three-hour epic opens with our protagonists raiding and freeing an immigration detention center on the US-Mexico border. The film follows Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor), members of the far-left activist group called the French 75. 

The prologue follows the pair through a whirlwind montage of various acts of resistance. Perfidia gives birth to a daughter and becomes jealous of Bob when her newborn seemingly prefers him to her. Her growing frustration eventually results in a bank robbery gone wrong. After escaping authorities by ratting on other members of the French 75, she flees to Mexico, leaving Bob short of a muse and saddled with a one-year old baby daughter. Before we know it, sixteen years have passed. Bob is now a washed-up alcoholic, harboring a stereotypically combative relationship with his now-teenaged daughter. This is where the film really begins.

Perfidia, as a character, is totally captivating. Despite being absent for a majority of the film, the audience feels her impact the entire time. The rest of the film after the prologue essentially follows the consequences of Perfidia’s actions. Teyana Taylor’s portrayal of the character is electric. Perfidia could act selfishly and inconsiderately, but Taylor elevates Perfidia to a thoughtful and complex character. Perfidia can be hypocritical and short-tempered, a “rat” in the eyes of the French 75, yet she feels human and sympathetic, someone to root for in spite of her flaws.

Willa, Perfidia’s daughter, is the emotional core of the film, as well as the film’s true subject. She endures peril after peril — one battle after another — and miraculously survives to see another day. In many ways, Willa is a stand-in for the younger generation. Despite her passion, strength and capability, she is constantly insulted or degraded. Nearly everybody she encounters misunderstands, misrepresents or projects their beliefs onto her. Her father, Bob, sees Perfidia in her. She is both his whole world and his greatest burden. To the authoritarian Colonel Lockjaw, Willa is the physical manifestation of his greatest shame, his guiltiest pleasure come to life. The venom he holds for his own repressed desire is thrust upon her. The members of the “Christmas Adventurer’s Club”, a white supremacist group that Lockjaw is eager to join, see her as something to be eradicated, a stain on their name. Members of the French 75 see her solely as a shadow of Perfidia. 

By any metric, Willa is an incredibly compelling character. Yet she still doesn’t feel whole. The film contains so many conflicting perspectives of her character that it obstructs the real Willa. We learn very little about Willa’s own life apart from the fact that she is passionate and sometimes hides things from her dad. Unfortunately, the issue of half-baked characters doesn’t stop with her. The antagonists of the film are almost comically evil. The underground society seeking “racial purification” are all rich, semi-old, white, fleece-wearing bros who use corporate terms like “circle back” when discussing adding a new “superior” specimen to their ranks. While the observation of powerful racist white men in power is an astute one, the satire would really benefit from some sharper critiques.

Anderson makes frequent use of these over-the-top villains. One of his best known films, “There Will Be Blood” centers a deeply evil oil-prospector who adopts the son of one of his deceased employees in order to appear as a trustworthy family man to local landowners. These characters are not out of the realm of plausibility for PTA. However, when it comes to a film as tragically politically relevant as “One Battle After Another,” it’s a bit jarring to see ridiculous, cartoonish villains. More often than not, the real villains in history claim they were “just following orders,” making this exaggerated depiction feel divorced from the weight of the subject matter at times.

This is not to say “One Battle After Another” is a bad film whatsoever. Above all else, it is enthralling. It is suspenseful, shocking and deeply entertaining from start to finish. But therein lies the issue — it is revolution done by Hollywood. The roles may have moved around a bit compared to most mainstream narratives — the villain is the colonel and the hero is the young resistor — but at its core, it’s entertainment. Yes, the film is nuanced and pressing, and it raises many urgent points. But it remains true that, in the words of Audre Lorde, the master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house. A film created within such an exclusionary system as Hollywood will likely not make any great societal changes. The most extreme reaction you’ll probably see will be people angrily calling it woke and then moving on to the next thing in a matter of days. A revolution-glorifying film might inspire a few, but most will forget that feeling on the drive home. As opposed to the code phrase used in the film, for most viewers Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies and Hooterville Junction will remain relevant.