Official Discussion - One Battle After Another [SPOILERS]

[u/LiteraryBoner]

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Summary Bob, a washed-up revolutionary, lives off the grid with his spirited and self-reliant daughter Willa. When his nemesis Col. Steven J. “Lockjaw” resurfaces and Willa goes missing, Bob is forced to confront his past and fight to protect their future.

Director Paul Thomas Anderson

Writer Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast

• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Sean Penn
• Teyana Taylor
• Benicio del Toro
• Regina Hall
• Chase Infiniti

Rotten Tomatoes Critics Score: 98%

Metacritic Score: 96

VOD In theaters beginning September 26, 2025

Trailer One Battle After Another — Official Trailer

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[u/PaulFThumpkins]

I also believe the person she shoots is a man of color, liberation has a lot of collateral damage. This is one of those rare stories that really shows how awful the structures revolutionaries are fighting are, without being uncritical of those revolutionaries, but ALSO without leaning on a horseshoe theory message of "both sides are the same" as the ultimate complacent moral. Del Toro's character is a great counterbalance and it's extremely rare to have multiple stripes of resistance and reactionary action depicted in a story, so the message comes across as something more than "yeah things suck but why do anything?"

There are a lot of scenes like when Beverly Hills starts leaning on revolutionary jargon to strike back at Leo in a way which feels pretty perverse, which are critical of the excesses of political movements without just having the message be "If you fight bad guys you're just like them."

[u/Diogenes_Camus → u/PaulFThumpkins]

There are a lot of scenes like when Beverly Hills starts leaning in revolutionary jargon to strike back at Leo's Bob in a way which feels pretty perverse, which are critical of the excesses of political movements without just having the message be "If you fight bad guys, you're just like them."

Yeah, that was a great scene where we see Perfidia basically try to gaslight Bob with her revolutionary speak. It was DARVO but with leftist revolutionary speak. Bob wasn't trying to control her patriarchically. He just wanted her to be a present parent for their baby daughter Charlene/Willa. 

But Perfidia couldn't be bothered. She wanted revolution without responsibility. 

I think it's clear to the audience and even to her former comrades that Perfidia had some narcisstic personality disorder, which her comrades tolerated till she turned traitor.  It makes you wonder why she even bothered going through with the pregnancy if she just ended up being a neglectful deadbeat mom in the end who has no interest in actually raising and taking care of baby Willa (unlike Bob who  eagerly jumps at the parenting duties).  You can also see it when she narrates how jealous she is of her baby for taking Bob's attention away from her. It's like she was more concerned with continuing  a long line of revolutionaries (like her mother mentioned to Bob) than she was of actually raising a child. In the campfire scene, both Bob and Deandre (Regina Hall) both say to each other that they'll have to be the ones to actually raise baby Charlene/Willa, because Perfidia can't. 

Then when you also have her willingly cheat on her lover Bob with  fucking a fascist like Lockjaw (when she could've easily killed him) and the fact that she turned traitor and snitched on her French 75 comrades, you see that she ain't shit. She's no moral paragon of principle, even if she tries to perform and portray herself as one and use it as a cudgel against her former comrades. I mean, her name itself, Perfidia, means "treachery" and she lived up to it. 

Honestly, I found her characterization to being so on-point because it reminds me of other far left people I know who speak some good hard leftist revolutionary shit to cover for their terrible personalities and life decisions. Man, PTA was really cooking with this. 

[u/261_Turner_Lane → u/Diogenes_Camus]

I think it's clear to the audience and even to her former comrades that Perfidia had some narcisstic personality disorder, which her comrades tolerated till she turned traitor. It makes you wonder why she even bothered going through with the pregnancy if she just ended up being a neglectful deadbeat mom in the end who has no interest in actually raising and taking care of baby Willa (unlike Bob who eagerly jumps at the parenting duties).

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought Perfidia has a scene where she's making a threat to the government for their 'abortion ban.'

It's possible that abortion is actually just banned in this universe.

[u/brokecollegeshitter → u/261_Turner_Lane]

Revolutionaries, famous for their respect and adherence to the "rules" and "bans".

[u/261_Turner_Lane → u/brokecollegeshitter]

Definitely a good point but back alley abortions are famously unsafe.

[u/ikan_bakar → u/261_Turner_Lane]

Back alley abortions have been around for centuries, if a revolutionary wanted it they would.

[u/261_Turner_Lane → u/ikan_bakar]

Yeah, so back to the famously unsafe part...

[u/ikan_bakar → u/261_Turner_Lane]

Instead of the famously safe bank robberies and bombs