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It
is difficult to imagine
two movies as different
in subject, style, and
scope as Paul Thomas
Anderson’s One Battle After Another and Ben Leonberg’s Good Boy. The
two films, however,
share a subtext as old
as storytelling itself:
the basic, overriding
necessity of protecting
the people you love.
From the chaos of One Battle After Another (which
truly lives up to its
title), two characters
emerge as its center:
Bob Ferguson (Leonardo
DiCaprio) and his
teenage daughter Willa
(Chase
Infiniti). Bob and
Willa are not their
real names. The
first third of OneBattle After Another depicts
Bob—then known as
Pat “Rocket
Man”
Calhoun—as a
member of French 75, a
Weathermen-like
revolutionary group,
along with his lover
Perfidia Beverly Hills
(Teyana Taylor).
Together with their
comrades, Pat and
Perfidia rob banks,
bomb buildings and free
migrants from detention
centers. Along
the way Perfidia gives
birth to a daughter,
Charlene. What Pat
doesn’t know is
that he might not be
Charlene’s
father. The other
possible father is Col.
Steven J. Lockjaw (Sean
Penn), a corrupt
military officer who,
catching Perfidia in
the act of planting a
bomb, gives her the
choice of going to jail
or having sex with him.
Later, capturing
Perfidia after a
botched bank robbery,
Lockjaw tells her she
will serve forty years
in prison unless she
turns state’s
evidence.
Perfidia lives down to
her name, ratting on
comrades whom Lockjaw
and his men shoot down
in the street.
Pat and baby Charlene
go into hiding under
the names of Bob and
Willa. Perfidia,
meanwhile, escapes from
witness protection (and
Lockjaw’s amorous
advances) into Mexico.
Sixteen years later,
Bob and Willa live in a
sanctuary city in
Colorado. Willa,
a smart and capable
teenager, is the adult
in her relationship
with Bob, a paranoid
slacker whose main
activity is smoking
hash and guzzling booze
while watching The
Battle of Algiers on streaming. But Bob’s paranoia turns out to be
justified.
Lockjaw has been
recruited by the
Christmas Adventurers
Club, a powerful white
supremacy organization,
and the existence of a
mixed-race daughter
would be, shall we say,
inconvenient.
The rest of One Battle After Another is
the story of Bob and
Willa fleeing Lockjaw,
becoming separated, and
trying to find each
other again.
Helping them is an
underground network
including martial arts
teacher Sergio St.
Carlos (Benicio Del
Toro) and former French
75 comrade Deandra
(Regina Hall). On
their tail are Lockjaw,
his troops, and bounty
hunter Avanti (Eric
Schweig).
Complicating matters is
Tim Smith (John
Hoogenakker), a
Christmas Adventurers
hit man with orders to
kill both Lockjaw and
Willa.
Loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland, One Battle
After Another has received some of the most glowing reviews of
any film in recent memory. There is well-deserved Oscar buzz for
Anderson, cinematographer Michael Bauman and every major
member of the cast. But unsurprisingly the film has also been
condemned for its leftward slant. Anderson was smart to begin
the film with French 75 liberating a barb-wired camp full of
migrants, rather than a bombing or bank robbery, to get the
audience on Bob’s side. (It goes without saying that the liberation
scene feels especially urgent here and now.) There is
nothing—and should be nothing—to endear Lockjaw or any of his
racist goons to viewers.
Nevertheless, One Battle After Another is Anderson’s biggest hit
to date, and there are several reasons for this. First, the film is
gleefully kinetic; it moves, moves, moves, and the car chases
alone would make James Bond envious. Second, the movie
contains some hilarious comedy relief; the best is Bob, having
forgotten the code sequence to reach French 75 after sixteen
years, screaming into the phone like an irate retiree demanding
customer service. Third, the characters are well-fleshed and the
actors who play them superb. Fourth, as I said at the beginning,
the core of the film is the touching devotion between Bob and
Willa. If Steven Lockjaw resembles Buck Turgidson and Jack D.
Ripper, Bob and Willa—as several critics have pointed out—are
more like Jean Valjean and Cosette, albeit with a happier ending.
The final scenes between DiCaprio and Infiniti are heart-melting
and provide the audience with a satisfying sense of closure. One
Battle After Another has been accused of preaching to a very
small choir; I think it’s not a choir, but the whole cathedral.
Good Boy runs less than half as long as One Battle After Another, and is infinitely more modest, yet it packs a significant punch. In
interviews, director and co-screenwriter Leonberg said the
inspiration for Good Boy came from a simple observation: have
you ever noticed your dog staring at an empty corner, or barking
at nothing? In the case of Indy (Leonberg’s real-life dog), that
corner isn’t empty, and his bark is definitely directed at
something.
Good Boy begins with Indy sleeping beside his master Todd
(Shane Jensen). Indy wakes when he is pelted with drops of
blood. Todd, who has a chronic lung disease, is hemorrhaging
from his mouth.
After leaving the hospital, Todd decides to move into his late
grandfather’s (Larry Fessenden) isolated house, with Indy as his
only companion. Indy senses almost immediately that something
is wrong. He hears things Todd can’t hear, and smells things
Todd can’t smell. He sees Bandit, the grandfather’s long-deceased
dog, and finds Bandit’s old bandanna under the bed. He sees a
figure covered in muck wandering through the house and in the
yard.
Meanwhile, Todd deteriorates both physically and mentally. He
spends most of his time watching horror films and his
grandfather’s how-to taxidermy videos. At the end of one of those
videos, the grandfather veers off the subject and starts saying
some very unsettling things. Todd is oblivious. Indy doesn’t
understand the words, but he feels the vibe.
Good Boy could easily have been a botch, or an unintentional
laugh riot, had not Leonberg been so meticulous. There is a
charming featurette at the end of Good Boy in which Leonberg
shows how he filmed Indy over a three-year period, striving to get
exactly the expressions and reactions he wanted. Leonberg
stresses that Indy is not a trained canine performer, just a family
pet, and had no idea he was in a movie. Indy’s performance,
Leonberg says, owes a great deal to the Kuleshov Effect Kuleshov
effect - Wikipedia. But even knowing that, audiences will be
deeply moved by Indy. Leonberg shoots and edits the film to
emphasize—pardon my neologism here—Indy’s dogness.
Above all, Leonberg emphasizes Indy’s devotion to his master and
desire to protect him. Indy is everything we want a dog to be. He
is virtually the whole show; there are few humans, and we do not
even see them clearly, except Todd toward the end. We feel all of
Indy’s growing anxiety for Todd, and that increases exponentially
our anxiety for Indy. When the scares come, they come thick and
fast, and Indy’s vulnerability makes them all the scarier. In any
case, at the end of Good Boy, we feel a rush of emotion we don’t
expect to feel at the end of a horror movie.
A word about Indy’s breed: he is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling
Retriever, or “Toller” for short. The smallest of the retrievers,
Tollers have distinctive golden-red coats and are known for their
energy, intelligence, and friendliness. Before Good Boy, I never
saw a Toller except in the occasional dog show broadcast. After Good Boy, I hope to see a lot more Tollers—and you will too.
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