Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams
The Master is an odd film. What is really about? It wants desperately to be about Something Important, but there is nothing of substance there. Its hero is non-descript and its other characters seem on the verge of becoming interesting, only to dissipate into vagueness. There are pieces here that, if they fit together, would make a tremendous movie. However, we are left with what might have been.
The film opens in the last days of World War II, in which an alcoholic sailor named Freddie (Phoenix) leaves the Navy with no place to go and nothing to do. He creates beverages made with all kinds of ingredients including paint thinner. After an unsuccessful stint as a department store photographer, he lights out for the undeveloped California farmlands. There, one of his potions kills a man and he flees. He stumbles across a yacht which is lit up and hosting a wedding reception. He sneaks in and crashes for the night. The next morning, he is discovered by the yacht's owner, Lancaster Dodd, who is a seemingly successful writer. Instead of having him arrested for trespassing, Dodd recruits him to be part of The Cause. The Cause is a growing cult run by Dodd and his wife Peggy (Adams), who perform "processes" on its members in order to get them in touch with past lives and feelings present in utero. This appears to be an allusion to L. Ron Hubbard and Scientology, but it's never spelled out. I suppose Dodd's cult is not that much different from many others. All one needs is a hook and followers, even if the hook is complete bunk.
Until Freddie meets up with Dodd, Freddie is a loser alcoholic roaming aimlessly from place to place. In the "process", he discusses a girl named Doris, who was a teenager when he left for war and since never went back home to locate her. Does this trigger his alcoholic rages? That's likely, but since Freddie makes drinks out of paint thinner, torpedo fuel, and whatever else he can find, mere whiskey isn't likely to cure what ails him. After hooking up with The Cause, Freddie follows Dodd around from place to place, but the movie never convinces me that is truly inside.
I was most disappointed in the Dodd character. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is one of the most interesting of actors, but he is not so in The Master. His speeches, methods, and beliefs are hollow. He forces Freddie to exorcise his demons by walking endlessly from one side of a room to another touching the walls. What this is supposed to do I don't know. Maybe even Dodd himself doesn't know. His son points out to Freddie at one point, "Don't you know he's making this up as he goes along." Certainly Dodd is some sort of a hypocrite, but how? The movie never really connects the dots between him and what he is trying to teach others. Certainly, for Dodd to be successful in gaining followers, he has to at least be convincing in peddling his bullshit. In this film, he is less than compelling, so why would others want to follow him?
So what becomes of Freddie in all of this? Does he quit drinking? Does he conquer his demons? From all appearances, the answer is no. He is a loser in the beginning, the middle, and the end. He doesn't appear to have learned anything. Perhaps that's the point, but does this make for solid drama? The Master is like its protagonist. It wanders and meanders, but despite all of the mileage covered, we realize we haven't gone anywhere. The Master feels like a lost opportunity more than anything else.
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