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The Master

Watched it.
I was fucking amazed.
 
Happy Birthday to L. Ron Hubbard! March 13, 1911 – January 24, 1986.

The greatest thing he ever did was inspire this beautifully poignant film from the master of modern cinema, P. Thomas Anderson.

Drink Up, Smoke Up, Snort Up, Shoot Up.
 
Finally caught up with this on Netflix. Beautiful photography, great performances, strong first act, muddled middle, muffled fart of an ending. Neglify's commentary upthread helped me understand Freddie's journey in retrospect, but in the moment, the character was so unlikable and opaque I lost the plot about halfway through, and mostly soaked in the visuals until it finished. Why was he courting a high schooler when he was seemingly already in his early 30s? Was his character supposed to be significantly younger? Either way, I don't think her mother would ever have wanted him around her daughter.

Finally, I'll just co-sign Mick LaSalle's review:
 
If it were just a middling effort, "The Master" would be a lot less frustrating. But the latest from writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson ("Magnolia," "There Will Be Blood") has greatness in it - two extraordinary performances, intuitive and revealing photography and scene setting, and a distinct directorial sensibility that hovers between sobriety and satire. Yet all those virtues are undermined by a narrative that goes all but dead for the last hour.

Thus, a film that starts off seeming like the best of 2012 becomes a chore to sit through, and I suspect that few, even among this film's enthusiasts, will come to the end of the movie wishing there were more.

It didn't have to be that way. "The Master" is like some exalted individual with an extremely common weakness. The things that are great about "The Master" are those things only Paul Thomas Anderson could have brought to it, and the things that are bad are those any good screenwriter could have fixed. Alas, Anderson wrote this one himself.
Click to expand...

Grade: B
 
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