One Battle After Another: PTA’s California Epic

Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film turns the American Southwest into a mirror of modern rebellion and human resilience.

There’s a rush that comes with every second — every frame, every shift in the soundtrack and score — delivering a gut-punch of emotion wrapped inside Paul Thomas Anderson’s intense cat-and-mouse chase that sprawls across nearly three hours.

One Battle After Another is not simply a film that spans timeliness, it expands what we believe the American Southwest can represent; forcing us to confront the ground-level battles so many feel seeping into the streets today.

It made me think of the famous line: “The revolution will not be televised.” It cannot be — and that’s why a searing exposé like PTA’s latest is a testament to the revolutionary potential of cinema itself.

This is a film that elevates subject matter while threading subtextual messages only movies can convey — in the darkness of a theater, among a collective of strangers witnessing something larger than life.

Each viewer becomes witness to a film that defies genre and redefines what a screenplay can become.

I’ve followed PTA’s career for years — as have so many artists inspired by his uncompromising vision — and he remains one of those writer-directors who doesn’t ask us to agree with him, but to change our perspective.

His worlds are both absurd and painfully real. Comedy finds its way into tragedy. Moments of levity pierce unbearable tension. His work reminds us that life itself is an improvisation — strange, volatile, and profoundly human.

At first glance, this seems like a star-driven vehicle led by Leonardo DiCaprio and Benicio Del Toro, trading the driver’s seat of the narrative back and forth. Yet, what makes this film so compelling is the strength of its female ensemble, particularly Teyana Taylor, whose early performance anchors the story and introduces us to the labyrinth ahead. Through her eyes, we enter a world of secret organizations and the moral quicksand of immigration systems weaponized for personal gain.

The story unravels like a modern-day Dickensian epic — not the tale of one protagonist, but of an entire community caught in revolution’s echo.

PTA refuses to hand us a single hero because that would dilute the truth: this is everyone’s story. It’s about the struggle to belong, to fight, and to survive inside systems that consume us.

One Battle After Another unfolds like an epic western reborn — the deserts of California replacing dusty saloons, the quiet tension of ICE raids standing in for outlaw duels.

It’s a portrait of America’s contradictions: brutal and beautiful, fractured and alive. When the true villains emerge, the film surges forward with an almost operatic momentum. There’s a touch of melodrama — a theatricality that reveals the absurdity of those who profit from human suffering.

PTA lifts the curtain like The Wizard of Oz, revealing the architects of chaos not as monsters, but as ordinary people desperate to shape the world in their image.

The Story Begins…

There’s a 16-year span, bridging two generations.

The first half belongs to Gen X and Millennials — the revolutionaries who once believed they could rewrite the world. The second half centers on Gen Z, led by the luminous Chase Infiniti, who just wants to feel “normal.” But normalcy, in this world, is illusion.

Through Chase’s lens, we see a generation inheriting exhaustion — and yet, from that exhaustion, lighting a new flame. These aren’t the polished revolutionaries of history; they’re stoners, misfits, dreamers, and gender-queer kids discovering that hope itself is an act of rebellion. PTA renders them not as archetypes, but as real people surviving the chaos of modern America.

There’s a tenderness beneath the grit. When Del Toro’s character brings DiCaprio to his home, revealing how he’s quietly served the cause for years, we see what revolution looks like away from the cameras — small acts of faith, compassion, and resistance. PTA doesn’t preach. He simply shows. His camera observes, listens, and trusts us to feel. That restraint is what makes his work timeless — a reminder that empathy doesn’t need explanation.

By the final frame, One Battle After Another leaves you with a paradoxical peace: the revolution cannot be televised because it’s not entertainment — it’s experience. It happens in the choices we make, the stories we tell, and the courage we find to keep going when the odds are stacked against us. The film becomes a mirror, reflecting a messy, flawed, and beautiful world — a world still worth fighting for.

Like the desert landscapes it captures, the movie feels both vast and intimate, unafraid to sit in silence or chaos. Every frame is drenched in purpose. Every sound feels chosen. This is a work of staggering craft and patience, a film PTA reportedly developed over two decades — and you can feel every moment of that labor in its detail, rhythm, and humanity.

And for those of us in Northern California, there’s something hauntingly familiar here…

PTA’s lens captures the golden-gray light, the cracked highways, the fog-drenched mornings that hover over our coastal towns. You can feel the ghosts of Big Sur, Oakland, and the Santa Cruz Mountains breathing through each scene — places where revolution has always lived quietly in the redwoods. The film honors that spirit, the way Northern California has long stood as a refuge for dreamers, dissenters, and seekers. Watching it here feels almost sacred — like the land itself is whispering through the screen, reminding us that change, like the Pacific, comes in waves.

One Battle After Another isn’t just a cinematic experience — it’s an invocation. It asks what we value, what we’re willing to fight for, and whether we still believe in the collective power of storytelling. The film reminds us that art, when done with intention and heart, can ignite revolutions — not on the screen, but in the soul.

This is the kind of movie that lingers in your bloodstream, that changes how you see the world walking out of the theater. PTA has given us not just a film, but a mirror — one that reflects our chaos, our compassion, and our unyielding hope.

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About The 831

The 831 is an independent journalism collective rooted in Santa Cruz, Monterey, and San Benito counties. We tell human stories that connect art, place, and resistance. Support people-powered storytelling — subscribe, pledge, and share to keep local culture alive.