As the credits roll after nearly three hours of satire-soaked action, vigilante tropes, and family drama, what lingers in the mind of audiences isn’t Leonardo DiCaprio’s faultless stoner-dad performance or Sean Penn’s return to the film industry after a 15-year hiatus. Producer and Director Paul Thomas Anderson leaves us with an unsettling feeling of familiarity — the realization that what we’ve watched on screen wasn’t entirely fiction. Exiting West Newton Cinema, part of me braced for the possibility of an onslaught of counterculture and violent police crack-downs on the streets of Newton. Fortunately, my Lyft whisked me away to the safety of Wellesley, but the thought lingered: are we as safe as we think we are?
Penn’s character, Lockjaw, and the far-right militia come to directly oppose the French 75, a far-leftist group of rebels and reactionaries. The foil reflects the tension between conservative fascist authoritarianism and anti-fascist radicals. However, caught between the crossfire of state-enforced brutality and martyr-like liberation are father and daughter Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Willa (Chase Infiniti). DiCaprio’s character portrays an ordinary father who is willing to sacrifice his past as a “Rocketman” bomb expert and take on a completely new identity to protect his child. The tender storyline between Bob and Willa suggests that, oftentimes, ordinary people and families become the collateral damage of both authoritarian and revolutionary violence. As the title of the film suggests, neither group “wins;” rather, each conflict only reinforces the cyclical nature of cruelty, martyrism, and a grotesque scramble for power.
One of the film’s most obvious political threads is immigration. Anderson highlights real-world issues surrounding immigration, rather than using it as a subtle allegory, offering contemporary commentary on state control and how the reinforcement of policy can often blur into violence. Fascist rhetoric parallels the anti-immigrant rhetoric we hear today, as well as the jarring spectacles of ICE raids and anti-immigrant crackdowns across the United States. Immigration in the film acts as a cornerstone that illustrates fascism’s obsession with exclusion and racial purity and the desperate pushback of reactionary forces. However, though Anderson frames fascism as a destructive force, he critiques anti-fascism as a flawed resistance. In the film, the French 75’s revolutionary interventions against Lockjaw and the militia, even with their noble intentions to help mobilize vulnerable communities, often endangered those very same people.
However, the politics of the film are often fuzzy, with Bob and Willa’s relationship at the forefront of the movie. Though Anderson uses his characters as a vehicle to humanize the theme of real-world activism against fascism, part of me did wish he would be more direct and urgent in his political commentary. The film’s oscillation between violent bombings, absurd satire, and intimate familial interactions can make the anti-fascist and fascist elements feel symbolic at times.
The melodrama and action are vital to the emotional and visual experience of the movie; the audience is left to read between the lines to understand the systemic forces at play. However, this hesitancy to grapple with the problem of political extremism may be Anderson’s attempt to reveal the tension between the personal and political. Though the fight against fascism is urgent, moral compromises and the unique circumstances of individuals complicate the narrative. Viewers seeking a film that offers a sharper/bolder perspective on sociopolitical realities may feel that the stylistic and emotional tonality of the film dilutes its message.
The movie invites us to reflect on the consequences of extremism on all sides, especially ordinary people who bear the cost of ideological battles. It’s time to meditate on the cost of the battles we fight, one after another, which neither side truly wins.
