One Battle After Another Ends With a Promise

"The United States' southern border is a heavily surveilled nightmare, and the country's agents can do anything they want - threaten citizens, raid factories, occupy schools. The fact that it manages to be hopeful at all is a miracle, and yet in the end, that's exactly what One Battle After Another is: a portrait of how individuals can resist, make a difference, and protect one another at a time when the American government won't do it for you."

"PTA is in full fathers-of-daughters mode for this one, from which he pulled elements of Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel, Vineland, primarily its interest in what happens to revolutionaries when a revolution fails. That book was written in the 1980s about the 1960s, and here PTA spans the early aughts to now, focusing on the relationships between French 75 members Pat (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Perfidia Beverly Hills (Teyana Taylor); their daughter, Charlene (Chase Infiniti); and military colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean Penn)."

"Lockjaw, who was secretly having sex with Perfidia, is obsessed with finding Pat and Charlene - now going by the names Bob and Willa - once Perfidia disappears and he's offered membership into an anti-immigrant group named the Christmas Adventurers Club. Lockjaw's belief that he's worthy of white-supremacist glory kicks the film into cat-and-mouse mode, with French 75 member Deandra (Regina Hall) spiriting away Willa to keep her safe; Bob struggling to break through his always-inebriated haze to find her;"

One Battle After Another depicts an America saturated with state-sanctioned violence, a heavily surveilled southern border, and unchecked agents who threaten citizens, raid factories, and occupy schools. The narrative follows former French 75 members Pat and Perfidia, their daughter Charlene, and military colonel Steven J. Lockjaw across the early 2000s to the present. Lockjaw obsessively hunts Pat and Charlene after Perfidia vanishes and joins an anti-immigrant group, triggering a cat-and-mouse chase. Deandra spirits Charlene away; Pat battles alcoholism while trying to find her. The story balances grim militarization with resilient, protective bonds among individuals resisting authoritarian forces.

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