Movie Review: The Master

Last night I watched The Master, and I was pretty excited to see a thinly veiled look into Scientology.  It stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Jaoquin Pheonix, and Amy Adams (all of whom earned Oscar nominations) and was written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.

When the movie ended, I asked my companions, "So, what what the point? What was the story? Who and what were we supposed to care about?."  I asked because I really did not know, and they had no answer for me either. It's not that the movie was confusing - it was not. It's not that the movie was complicated - it was not. It's that the movie had no actual story, and what the writer clearly intended the story to be was neither developed nor interesting.

Because of previews,  NPR stories, and the title, I thought the story was going to be about the guy who created Scientology: how he gained his followers, what he taught, and how the people around him were affected.  Sadly, this is not what it was about.

A major shortcoming of the film is that far too much time was spent with the Jaoquin Pheonix character (Freddie), a WWII veteran psychologically disturbed alcoholic. The first 30 minutes or so is spent following Freddie for reasons unknown, as he is perhaps the most uninteresting character in the film.  When he finally finds himself in the presence of the Master, I start to hope the movie is going to pick up. Unfortunately it doesn't. While we catch glimpses into the motives of the title character, we never get any deeper into that story, and instead, Anderson focuses on the relationship between the Master and Freddie. That might be fine, but neither the characters nor the relationship between the two evolve, hence, no there is no story. This film is, as I said on FB, "long, boring, pointless."

One thing I found maddening was that there were so many hints that interesting things were happening all around the main story, but we never got to learn about them.  Here are some examples:

• The Master & his wife. How did they come up with "the cause"? What are their motives in trying to obtain followers. What drives them? 
• The master's son. Mid-movie he tells Freddie his father is "making it up as he goes along."  We never see the son's struggle with how to fit in to the family without buying into the message. Then, most interestingly, at the end of the movie, the son seems on-board with "the cause."  How did that happen? Why did we not follow this character?
• The people who follow The Master.  Why are they drawn to him? What about "the cause" speaks to them. How do their families deal with the fact that they are following what some described as "a cult"? To be fair, Anderson may have thought he was writing this story through Freddie. His mistake was picking a character that is rather one dimensional and doesn't grow. Additionally,  he a character that never seems to 100% buy into the cause. The Laura Dern character - who is a true believer for much of the film- would have been a better choice. She has a pivotal moment with the Master in which she questions something and he yells at her. What happened next? Did she grapple with this? Did she accept it? We don't know. This great and powerful scene happened, and then... nothing.

And while many say how great the acting was, rest assured the acting is good despite the fact that the characters are all static. We have no clue what drives these characters and none of their stories are followed in a way that allows us to get any more than a 1 dimensional view of most of them.

The movie was a terrible disappointment. I cannot recommend anyone see it. I spent 2 1/2 hours wondering where the interesting movie shown in the previews was hiding.