Very good. Deep rich characters within the first 20 minutes. The film has an Aronofsky feel to it. A bit surreal and a bit like the directors prior work with intense characters. Hoffman was amazing as were most of the cast. Wonderful to look at... The story did veer a bit and the audience I was drifted a bit.
Phoenix channels a protoJoker in this. It's not as great as I hoped but it's interesting 7/10
Some of the casting. Jesse as Hoffman's son was great as they looked sunset but the love interest and daughter were too similar and confused a few, the audio want great at times either
A greatly increased appreciation upon a much put-off second viewing is mostly a result of Jeremy Ratzlaff's video essay on the Chronological Timeline of PTA's work. Even so, my initial lukewarm reaction was due in part to a slight disappointment with its status as PTA's follow-up to the Daniel Day-Lewis show.
Amongst PTA's oeuvre of masterpieces and near-perfection, The Master stands as the master key to unlock the relationships between all of his central characters. Thanks in part to Ratzlaff's essay, an argument can be made that beyond PTA's recurring theme of father issues, there is a cinematic universe within his films that exhibits the spiritual evolution of a man. Quell and Dodd, Plainview and Sunday, Doc and Bigfoot, John and Sydney, Dirk and Jack Horner are all mirrors of each other with complimentary desires and approaches that if both are able to reconcile their nature to combat their mirror and learn to love that which they are but loathe about the other, they will finally be able to break free of samsara. In Hard Eight, John/Quell/Plainview/Dirk finally find love but it is not with Sydney/Dodd/Sunday/Horner, that is why the next time we see this spirit incarnated in Magnolia, it is at least eight different people. Fortunately, by the end the spirit as able to reconcile its lessons but must face one final test in Punch-Drunk Love before finally being free of the cycle.
As he continues to make films, it remains difficult to formulate a Grand Unified Paul Thomas Anderson (GUPTA) theory, so I will leave with one final thought: The Master is unjustly overlooked and grossly misunderstood, but with it PT Anderson further establishes his place as not just one of the greatest living film directors but as one of the Greatest of All-Time™.
This movie has many favorites but i'm not one of them. Although well acted.....NOTHING happens and the movie just drags and drags and drags. Very boring movie.
The Master is really about Dianetics, isn't it? Or the Urantia Foundation. Any of those self-actualization "cults" that sprang up in the 50s and 60s and which produced what I've always called "brainwashing books". Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the L. Ron Hubbard figure, a modern mystic toying with pop psychology and science fiction ideas, regressing his followers to their past lives where the problems of today might find their source and cure. The story is told from the point of view of Joaquin Phoenix's character, Freddie, a disturbed and somewhat simple-minded WWII veteran who comes under the Master's sway, but seems the most improbable person to ever get something out of "the Cause". As with most of P.T. Anderson's films, there's a meandering quality to the work that's at once a strength and a weakness. On the one hand, it uses memory in the same way the Master's "processing" does, but on the other, it wears on the audience's patience, clocking in at probably a half-hour too long. Its underlying themes are a bit opaque to me still, so this is likely to be a film I truly discover on the second or third viewing. It's a critique of the power of cult, an apocalyptic father-son story, and gloriously humanistic, but the narrative is so low-key that I have a hard time grasping it whole.
The plot was tepid at best and the main character was unpleasant, violent and self-absorbed (not to mention a borderline sexual predator). The film made no effort to explain the (to me incomprehensible) appeal of the Master and the Cause, nor did it explain the fascination shown by the cult-members towards such a self-aggrandizing know-nothing know-it-all who respects no law or opinion but his own. I found his behaviour exhausting and intolerable after just 5 minutes of screen-time. There are films that depict a haunting deconstruction of cult mentality. This is not one of them. What's left is a rudderless character piece, and what good is that when one cannot connect or sympathise with any of the characters that appear on screen for longer than a single scene?
I don´t know what to think about this movie, it is good, a little bit of a slow and shocking movie, any movie of Paul Thomas Anderson is good.
The acting is the best part of the movie, because Joaquin Phoenix was extraordinary, he stole the entire movie, Philip Seymour Hoffman was good but I don´t like him for some reason, and Amy Adams was Amy adams, great like always. Of this three actors the one who had a real shot to win an oscar was Joaquin Phoenix.
3.75/5
@underwaterhesus: Jim Carrey is strongly associated with comedic roles, so of course no-one would take this picture serious if Carrey played Freddie Quell. Therefore you can't compare these two possibilities and say The Master is only a great picture because of the superb acting; it's more than that. Casting, among many things.
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Comments 1 - 15 of 37
Boei
Most mention Phoenix, but Hoffman is just as amazing.Very promising premise, but like others say it’s boring. And not in a nothing happens way, but what happens is boring.
Had a lot of potential, but it failed to deliver. At least I enjoyed their performances.
boulderman
Very good. Deep rich characters within the first 20 minutes. The film has an Aronofsky feel to it. A bit surreal and a bit like the directors prior work with intense characters. Hoffman was amazing as were most of the cast. Wonderful to look at... The story did veer a bit and the audience I was drifted a bit.Phoenix channels a protoJoker in this. It's not as great as I hoped but it's interesting 7/10
Some of the casting. Jesse as Hoffman's son was great as they looked sunset but the love interest and daughter were too similar and confused a few, the audio want great at times either
BLJNBrouwer
"If you leave me now, in the next life you will be my sworn enemy. And I will show you no mercy."fonz
A greatly increased appreciation upon a much put-off second viewing is mostly a result of Jeremy Ratzlaff's video essay on the Chronological Timeline of PTA's work. Even so, my initial lukewarm reaction was due in part to a slight disappointment with its status as PTA's follow-up to the Daniel Day-Lewis show.Amongst PTA's oeuvre of masterpieces and near-perfection, The Master stands as the master key to unlock the relationships between all of his central characters. Thanks in part to Ratzlaff's essay, an argument can be made that beyond PTA's recurring theme of father issues, there is a cinematic universe within his films that exhibits the spiritual evolution of a man. Quell and Dodd, Plainview and Sunday, Doc and Bigfoot, John and Sydney, Dirk and Jack Horner are all mirrors of each other with complimentary desires and approaches that if both are able to reconcile their nature to combat their mirror and learn to love that which they are but loathe about the other, they will finally be able to break free of samsara. In Hard Eight, John/Quell/Plainview/Dirk finally find love but it is not with Sydney/Dodd/Sunday/Horner, that is why the next time we see this spirit incarnated in Magnolia, it is at least eight different people. Fortunately, by the end the spirit as able to reconcile its lessons but must face one final test in Punch-Drunk Love before finally being free of the cycle.
As he continues to make films, it remains difficult to formulate a Grand Unified Paul Thomas Anderson (GUPTA) theory, so I will leave with one final thought: The Master is unjustly overlooked and grossly misunderstood, but with it PT Anderson further establishes his place as not just one of the greatest living film directors but as one of the Greatest of All-Time™.
Earring72
This movie has many favorites but i'm not one of them. Although well acted.....NOTHING happens and the movie just drags and drags and drags. Very boring movie.Siskoid
The Master is really about Dianetics, isn't it? Or the Urantia Foundation. Any of those self-actualization "cults" that sprang up in the 50s and 60s and which produced what I've always called "brainwashing books". Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the L. Ron Hubbard figure, a modern mystic toying with pop psychology and science fiction ideas, regressing his followers to their past lives where the problems of today might find their source and cure. The story is told from the point of view of Joaquin Phoenix's character, Freddie, a disturbed and somewhat simple-minded WWII veteran who comes under the Master's sway, but seems the most improbable person to ever get something out of "the Cause". As with most of P.T. Anderson's films, there's a meandering quality to the work that's at once a strength and a weakness. On the one hand, it uses memory in the same way the Master's "processing" does, but on the other, it wears on the audience's patience, clocking in at probably a half-hour too long. Its underlying themes are a bit opaque to me still, so this is likely to be a film I truly discover on the second or third viewing. It's a critique of the power of cult, an apocalyptic father-son story, and gloriously humanistic, but the narrative is so low-key that I have a hard time grasping it whole.BigAwesomeBLT
I was hoping shit would get crazy, like, super crazy weird uncomfortable.Just a little hypnotism.
Awesome performances just needed something extra.
nicolaskrizan
great acting, but for what purpose? – not in my bookhttps://beyond1001movies.wordpress.com/
Popco
The plot was tepid at best and the main character was unpleasant, violent and self-absorbed (not to mention a borderline sexual predator). The film made no effort to explain the (to me incomprehensible) appeal of the Master and the Cause, nor did it explain the fascination shown by the cult-members towards such a self-aggrandizing know-nothing know-it-all who respects no law or opinion but his own. I found his behaviour exhausting and intolerable after just 5 minutes of screen-time. There are films that depict a haunting deconstruction of cult mentality. This is not one of them. What's left is a rudderless character piece, and what good is that when one cannot connect or sympathise with any of the characters that appear on screen for longer than a single scene?MinesofMoria
Wish the plot was as strong as Joaquin Phoenix's acting.Joker of Gotham
I don´t know what to think about this movie, it is good, a little bit of a slow and shocking movie, any movie of Paul Thomas Anderson is good.The acting is the best part of the movie, because Joaquin Phoenix was extraordinary, he stole the entire movie, Philip Seymour Hoffman was good but I don´t like him for some reason, and Amy Adams was Amy adams, great like always. Of this three actors the one who had a real shot to win an oscar was Joaquin Phoenix.
3.75/5
greennui
PTA was definitely "making it up as he went along".tndouglas
Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman were spectacular. The movie was well done, but boring.Gershwin
@underwaterhesus: Jim Carrey is strongly associated with comedic roles, so of course no-one would take this picture serious if Carrey played Freddie Quell. Therefore you can't compare these two possibilities and say The Master is only a great picture because of the superb acting; it's more than that. Casting, among many things.HEMA
The story didn't interest me one bit, but the acting was superbShowing items 1 – 15 of 37