PTA's One Battle After Another opens wide with strong early buzz

Paul Thomas Anderson’s long-awaited film One Battle After Another opens widely this weekend, arriving in theaters Friday with 70mm IMAX and VistaVision presentations after early press screenings drew strong reactions. The politically charged action comedy, led by Leonardo DiCaprio and featuring Sean Penn, Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti, recounts the return of a washed-up exrevolutionary whose past violence threatens his teenage daughter and pulls him back into conflict.

DiCaprio plays Bob Ferguson, an exmilitant turned off-grid survivor who lives with his 16 year old daughter Willa. The story, a loose adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel Vineland, begins with an insurgent prologue and follows Bob as a white supremacist colonel named Steven Lockjaw, played by Penn, resurfaces to settle old scores. Anderson frames the plot against contemporary anxieties, with scenes that evoke migrant detention and antiimmigrant roundups without naming current officials or agencies.

Critics who attended early screenings praised the film’s blend of action, satire and family drama. Reviewers called out Anderson’s formal ambition and Jonny Greenwood’s propulsive score, noting standout...