One Battle After Another

Release date: 26 September 2025 (UK)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio; Sean Penn; Benicio del Toro; Regina Hall; Teyana Taylor; Chase Infiniti

Running time: 2h 42m

Cinematography: Paul Thomas Anderson, Michael Bauman

Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures

It’s the new Leo! Pre baby, I always seemed to miss the new Leo, and it feels like a feat not to have done so now. if you are reading this and we are likely to see each other in the next few weeks, please go and see the new Leo too so we can talk about it and I can feel part of the zeitgeist again.

The Guardian review describes this one as ‘at once serious and unserious’. My fears at the beginning were for the former – I’m all for serious, but it’s not easy to pay the proper attention when there are squeaky toys going off all around you and tiny little fists banging on your boobs to try and make the milk come out a bit quicker. The opening scenes – moody vistas as Teyana Taylor scopes out a migrant detention centre and meets up with Leo to plan some hard core resistance movement action – had me a bit worried. Then one of the characters was introduced as ‘Colonel Lockjaw’ and I knew it was going to be ok.

Colonel Lockjaw/Sean Penn

The silly names/pseudonyms come thick and fast – the revolutionary group is called The French 75 (it just makes me think of Zedel, and a former life of cocktails and late nights) and call each other by such names as Perfidia Beverly Hills and Junglepussy, whilst on the other extreme, a group of white supremecists have dubbed themselves the ‘Christmas Adventurers Club’ and have names like Virgil Throckmorton and Burt Rimhorn. (At once ridiculous and entirely believable.) When Leo has to try and get back in touch with his former revolutionary colleagues, he’s horrified to find himself talking to someone boringly named ‘Comrade Josh’.

Some time after the opening fireworks (Leo’s job in the French 75 appears to be letting off fireworks) he and Perfidia have a baby, and it’s at this point that I can actually feel the audience lean forward - yes, there are lots of men (and women) with guns and silly names, but the political commentary doesn’t stop at the sweeping themes of authoritarianism, racism and whether violence is ever justified by its motivation. There’s a wonderful moment where Perfidia - who is clearly meant to be far more hard core and committed to the cause than Leo - is on the phone to someone complaining that she’s been reduced to Leo’s ‘udder buddy’ and her nipples really hurt. I didn’t necessarily think there would be a lot to identify with in this one, but I was wrong. ‘It’s like she doesn’t even know she’s pregnant’ a frustrated Leo says to a friend, watching Perfidia still trying to be herself at 9 months. ‘Trust me’ I whispered to mine. ‘She knows.’

At this stage, the most I managed was a trip to Sheffield to see the snooker

I was joking last week about the aptness of the title, but now I’m wondering if it’s deliberate - like everything else in this film, it’s suggestive of a strange juxtaposition of ludicrous and deadly, deadly serious. Having a baby - it’s one battle after another, especially if you’re fighting an underground revolutionary war! And so this is one of those rare films where you have no idea if the ending will be funny, tragic or some mix of the two. Leo’s fight to keep his daughter safe lurches from silly, frantic chases around town in his dressing gown to deadly serious shoot outs, back to absurdist phone calls where he can’t remember the password to the revolutionary movement he hasn’t been in touch with for over a decade. Meanwhile, the Christmas Adventurers Club straightfacedly greet each other with ‘hail St Nick!’ and are essentially the epitome of the banality of evil. I felt a bit guilty for finding them so funny.

When it’s been 16 years since you set your telephone password

If I’m honest, this is the sort of proper film that doesn’t work all that well at baby cinema club. It demands attention, and it’s a wrench to leave for the nappy changes (although the fact that I knew exactly where we were when we came back suggests there could have been some shaving of the 2 hr 50 m run time.) Most of all, it’s about the Big Bold Beautiful World, and as hard as I’ve tried lately, it’s not that easy to feel a part of it right now.

A good friend said to me, when I told her I was pregnant, that when friends have a baby it’s a bit like they enter a tunnel. You can still call out to each other, and maybe even faintly hear each other, but you’re in tunnel nonetheless. It’s a weird place to be - completely lovely and so, so hard. Yesterday I had one of those horrible meltdowns that make you feel like a cliche - I feel flabby and drained and at once useless and far too essential, blah blah blah, and most of all, I’m not writing (except here). I may not be planning any revolutionary action (honestly, respect to her for managing this through pregnancy and postpartum), but it’s not like I can’t relate to Perfidia Beverly Hills, who just wants to find some way to get out and do her job again.

We don’t really get to find out how Perfidia felt about her baby in the context of the rest of her life until the very end of the film, and that part, despite the riotously silly plot and the huge scale of it all, made me cry. Because it’s hard, whether you’re an underground revolutionary fighter with a silly name or a mid list author. We’re all just doing our best.

But hey. I saw the new Leo! That has to count for something, right?

Good things: Sean Penn. A truly great school dance outfit for Chase Infiniti. Vaguely Shakespearean plotline.

Bad things: I was a bit worried that Leo had done the old age gap trick again, but in his slight defence, his character is meant to be 16 years younger when he’s with Teyana Taylor, who is exactly 16 years younger than him in real life. So I guess it’s ok? Maybe.

My review: Made me cry

Lily’s review: One poo (and a dramatic outfit change)

Next week: The Smashing Machine. Smashing!