Cruise Climbing the Walls, DiCaprio Crawling Out of the Tunnel [Slate]

Paul Thomas Anderson's "One Battle After Another"
The Politics of Survival Beyond Left and Right Ideologies

Movie Still Cut from "One Battle After Another"

"Do you know what freedom is? It's having no fear. Like goddamn Tom Cruise." Director Paul Thomas Anderson's new film, "One Battle After Another," can be summed up by this line from Carlos (Benicio Del Toro). It's not just a joke. It is a biting satire of the bravado of American-style liberalism and the ideal of the "fearless human" revered by both the left and the right.

Director Anderson invokes the name of Cruise, with whom he worked in "Magnolia" (2000). Back then, Cruise symbolized the collapse of masculinity and the myth of success. In this film, Cruise remains a lingering image of the human who denies fear. Anderson asks: Why have those who so loudly proclaimed freedom now become afraid?

Movie Still Cut from "One Battle After Another"

The Portrait of a Human Stripped of Ideology

"One Battle After Another" frames a confrontation between a revolutionary and a soldier, but in reality, it digs deeper into human instincts than ideology itself. The Black female revolutionary, Perpidia (Teyana Taylor), and the White male officer, Roczo (Sean Penn), initially appear as symbols of the left and right. However, as they clash, their conflict transforms into a physical union.

The revolution becomes entangled with desire, and power is revealed through sexuality. Through this intense relationship, Anderson exposes the truth that the root of all ideologies is human pleasure and the lust for power. Whether progressive or conservative, revolutionary or imperial, it is all just language used to rationalize personal desires. In this film, the face of politics is not a burning ideal, but the expansion of instinct.

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Beneath all of this lies the family. The father, Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio), is a failed revolutionary; the mother, Perpidia, is a warrior on the run; and their daughter, Willa (Chase Infinity), is burdened with the weight of her generation. Anderson asserts that the journey of the "revolutionary's daughter" begins when ideals are abandoned for the family, but truth emerges when the family is rebuilt. Perpidia, who once cried out for freedom, ends up imprisoned, while Bob trades bombs for baby bottles. Every revolution ultimately regresses to infantile desires. Yet, in the latter part of the film, as Bob crawls out of a tunnel, it is an overt image of rebirth. Bob chooses survival over ideology, and this is fulfilled in his quest to find his daughter.

Where the Boundaries Between Left and Right Collapse

This film is both the most commercial and the most cynical in Anderson's filmography. It criticizes beliefs that have been commodified by both the left and the right. Even revolutionaries become brands, and heroes are packaged as box office formulas. In this context, the only truly sincere character is Bob, wandering without knowing Willa's whereabouts. The organization that evacuated his daughter repeatedly asks, "What time is it?" but he cannot give the agreed-upon code. That question is turned back to the audience: "What era are we living in now?"

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A society where revolution, capital, and conviction have all collapsed. Within it remain only people who have lost their sense of time. Both the left and the right deny fear, worship heroes, and refuse to admit failure. Anderson presents this numbness as a portrait of the era, finding the roots of humanity beyond the fierce battles. He depicts the romance of progressivism as "shameful sex" and the order of conservatism as "sadistic pleasure." These are portraits of equally immature humans, intoxicated by their own rhetoric, yet sharing the same emptiness. The camera regards this foolishness with both cynicism and compassion. It believes that even in futile battles, humanity grows.

The Birth of Dark Hope

Once again, Anderson chooses an extreme union. If "There Will Be Blood" (2008) was about the collusion of Christianity and capitalism, "One Battle After Another" is about the physical union of progressivism (Perpidia) and conservatism (Roczo). Amidst conflict and intermingling, a new generation is born: their daughter, Willa, carrying the blood of both revolution and empire. She is far more realistic and resilient than her parents. Yet, the hope that blooms atop the ruins of progressivism and conservatism is not bright. The instinct to survive takes precedence over ideology, justification, or community. Thus, the ending is not grand. Instead of someone's victory, the film closes with a single scene of Bob reuniting with his daughter. Exhausted, corrupted, and unclean, they nevertheless survive. With the most human face, stripped of the convictions of progressivism and the order of conservatism.

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At the end of this confrontation, Carlos's line returns: "Do you know what freedom is? It's having no fear. Like goddamn Tom Cruise." With this, Anderson sums up all the ideological wars of the 21st century. Cruise is still climbing the outside of buildings, but DiCaprio is crawling out of a tunnel. That is the real "Mission Impossible" of our time.