A Review of One Battle After Another

Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is good, great even. The plot is succinct, the cinematography is awe-inspiring, and the acting is impeccable. It has every facet of a good picture. As someone not entirely familiar with Anderson’s body of work, other than Boogie Nights (good) and Licorice Pizza (one of the worst movies I’ve seen in theaters), I came in with very few expectations of what to expect. Most of my information about the film came from Twitter arguments where users had one battle after another on the movie’s treatment of revolutionary ideals. Whether the movie was pro- or anti-revolutionary seemed, before watching, to be the main theme or message of the movie. After leaving the theater, I felt confused at the notion. The movie doesn’t seem to take either side, not for the sake of audience debate but because that’s not the point.

 The movie does feature two revolutionary ideologues battling it out with the French-75 and Christmas Adventurers, but neither side’s actual plans of change are revealed. The French-75 is a shoe-in for left-wing groups: freeing immigrants from detention centers and attacking capitalist and federal institutions. The Christmas Adventurers seem more concerned with racial hierarchy in their own group than with any actual political change sweeping the country. Both of these groups work seemingly more to fortify the group than the separate American population. What stands out most in the film, instead, is its fixation on paternity: who fathers whom, and what that means in a world collapsing under the weight of its own inherited ideals. And also, I guess, spoilers ahead.

The movie presents two fathers, Bob and Lockjaw, as contrasting forces shaping Willa. The big twist in this movie comes from Willa’s assumed parentage. Throughout the movie, we’re meant to assume that despite Perfidia’s affair with Lockjaw, Bob is Willa’s biological father. However, at the start of the third act, we learn that Lockjaw, the big bad, is actually Willa’s true father. Lockjaw’s parentage, by all measures, is a curse. Lockjaw is a cruel man, a racist, and his hopes to join the Christmas Adventurers will be ruined if the truth of his mixed-race child is revealed. Lockjaw must kill Willa. However, after this truth is brought apparent to both Willa and Lockjaw, there is no intrinsic understanding between them; their blood runs the same, but their behavior does not. This idea negates the assumptions made by characters about Willa’s behavior in relation to Perfidia. Despite her parentage, Willa is proven to be fundamentally different from the blood she comes from. Willa spits, hisses, and runs from Lockjaw. His hatred and ideology find no echo in her. Blood, it turns out, doesn’t dictate character.

Lockjaw’s failure as a father underscores one of the film’s central ideas: character is not inherited. While his blood gives him a biological claim, it cannot grant him influence over Willa’s choices, instincts, or morality. After the revelation, we see that Willa’s defiance is a betrayal of her lineage and an assertion of her autonomy. Lockjaw’s cruelty and ideology find no echo in her because she has been formed through experience, not inheritance. Willa’s capacity for survival, her sense of right and wrong, and her ability to reject hatred are products of lessons learned, trust earned, and resilience developed. In the end, Lockjaw is biologically her father, but in every meaningful sense, he has no claim on who she is.

Bob, who has no biological claim to Willa, acts as her real father. He screams when she invites friends over. His paranoia makes him controlling, and in turn, Willa disrespects him. She calls him “Bob,” not “Dad,” sneaks around, and hides her phone. Yet as the movie unfolds, we see how much of Willa’s survival depends on Bob’s flawed but genuine care: His codewords save her twice, once when she is saved by a French-75 member, and another when a Christmas Adventurer fails to use them. Her secret cellphone becomes the vehicle by which Lockjaw tracks her down. Everything about Willa’s behavior, defiance, caution, and instinct is defined by Bob’s parenting. 

This is where the real catch of the movie comes from. Bob isn’t Willa’s biological father; there’s no assurance he can give her a kidney, no genealogy making them look alike, no blood connecting them, but he is her father. The film dismantles presumptions that blood determines destiny; instead, it is the love, lessons, and respect that are given. The final part of that, respect, is ultimately what Bob must learn throughout the film. In the final scene of the movie, Bob shows Willa a letter from Perfidia; the contents of which are less important than Bob’s act of no longer hiding Willa from the truth. As the movie end’s a radio call announces a protest in Oakland, four hours away, as Willa runs out the door, Bob’s only words are: “Stay Safe”. It’s both a plea and a release; his final act as a parent who has finally learned how to let go.

So no, I do not think this movie is about pro- or anti-revolutionary discussions. It’s not insane to me that the main discussion has been about these ideas; we live in an age of opposition where conflicting moralities and ideas about the world are shoved into the impressionable minds of children. As children are exposed more to the world, the importance of parenting becomes paramount. You don’t need your children to agree with you or understand your methodology, just to equip them with the skills and mindset to make them a good, capable person in this confusing, aggressive world. 

Bob’s parenting allows Willa to be capable. He is not gentle, nor wise, but his chaos is human. His rules, codes, and paranoia teach Willa to survive, not through ideology but instinct. That’s what separates him from Lockjaw; to Lockjaw, parenthood is an extension of ideology, a way to preserve himself through replication. When that replication falters, when Willa’s existence exposes his own impurity, he seeks to destroy what doesn’t resemble him. Bob becomes the father in the movie who, through failure and growth, learns not to possess Willa or mold her into a reflection of himself. He simply tries to keep her alive, and in doing so, teaches her how to live.

I am not a parent, far from one, but it seems the real message of One Battle After Another is to raise your kids knowing one day they will and have to take your lessons out into the world, and trusting that you did a good job. In a world this ugly, maybe the most revolutionary act isn’t picking a side, but raising someone kind enough to see through it all, and angry enough to spit in the face of a thousand ugly men. Ten out of ten stars, or whatever.