Movie Review: "The Master" (2012)

The Master; (2012), directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams.

Each year as a pastor, I preach on religious themes in four or five summer movies as a way of highlighting the overlapping of theology, ethics, and popular culture. Though such themes are common in movies because they are a common part of the cultural fabric, it is unusual for a film to depict these themes explicitly in a faith context.

“The Master,” the latest work by writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, brazenly steps into these controversial waters, offering a glimpse into one man’s encounter with the charismatic leader of a new religious movement, impeccably played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. While religious themes have influenced Anderson’s other films, especially the dramatic Biblical plague at the climax of “Magnolia,” the new movie seems to be a stylistic meditation on the nature of faith itself.

To be sure, some can argue the film merely serves as a cautionary tale about the danger of Scientology or other recent movements commonly regarded as cults.  On the surface, there are strong similarities between L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology and “The Cause” of Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman), often referred to as “The Master” in the movie.  Dodd’s claims to be an author, scientist, and moral philosopher, and the psychological processing techniques depicted in the film, along with the discussion of aliens and “a billion year” time-frame, seem reminiscent of descriptions of Scientology. (There likely are other parallels to Scientology, but these are outside the knowledge of those who have little interest in Hubbard’s movement.)

The magnetism of Dodd is experienced by Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix, returning to form after the bizarre “I’m Still Here” experiment), a recent World War II veteran still looking for direction in the postwar years. The trauma of war seems to have taken a significant toll on Quell, leaving him with a hair-trigger temper and an insatiable taste for low-quality home-mixed hooch and sex with random women. After losing his job following a spectacular blow-up and getting suitably sloshed, Quell crashes a party on a docked boat. Rather than be evicted, the stowaway is invited by the intrigued Dodd to travel with the group on the long voyage from California to New York.

During this trip, Quell becomes part of the group surrounding the charismatic leader, including Dodd’s wife Peggy (Amy Adams) and two adult children. While Quell undergoes his first taste of psychological processing, he also is privy to the peculiar dynamics of those closest to The Master. Dodd’s son is part of the team, but has little interest in accepting his father’s teaching; at one point, he bluntly says of his father, “he’s making this up as he goes along.” Dodd’s daughter seems willing to shape her views and behavior in ways to please her father.

Peggy, though, is more strong-willed and influential. Rather than simply being the encouraging presence behind the great man, she is at various times the promoter, defender, and even prompter of her husband. She is the first to raise doubts about Quell’s presence on the boat, wondering if he is a plant whose purpose is to spy and undermine the movement. Intriguingly, though, at one point she seems to be dictating part of Dodd’s second book as her husband furiously types away during the long voyage.

By the time the group arrives on the East Coast, though, Quell has become the self-appointed protection detail for Dodd. This leads him to track down a man who belittles Dodd’s movement at a New York dinner party, knocking on his apartment door in the middle of the night and beating him. It also leads to an altercation with police in Philadelphia, when they arrive to arrest Dodd on charges of fraud.

The middle section of the movie exposes the dangers of charismatic movements, where different people revolve around the central leader. Quell’s violent outbursts are unnerving to the intellectuals who generally are attracted to Dodd’s teachings and methods, but these people are unable to remove Quell from the group because he has The Master’s favor. This dynamic leads to subtle power plays by those seeking to influence the central leader, and it also highlights the tenuous relationships for everyone in the movement with Dodd, which are subject to change at the leader’s whim – as is discovered by a true believer who has the temerity to question one word change between Dodd’s first and second books, prompting an immediate and ugly response.

It would be easy for someone who values faith to see this movie simply as a cautionary tale about cults at the fringes of religious practice. The film certainly does this, especially in a wrenching scene where Quell is forced to continue a public processing exercise to his breaking point. However, the impact of The Cause on Quell, demonstrated by the movie’s final section, suggests a direct challenge to the practice of faith in any form.

At the end of “The Master,” one is left with a significant question: How has Quell’s life changed in any essential way? The process of identifying some of his self-delusions – a process that lies at the heart of most religions, including Christianity, and was elegantly stated by Plato in The Republic with his Allegory of the Cave – seems to allow Quell a moment of self-actualization to break free of The Master and The Cause.  It also helps him cope, in a more socially acceptable way, with the unresolved feelings stemming from a relationship before he shipped off to war.

Quell’s experience does not, though, fundamentally change his nature. At the end of “The Master,” he is still without much direction in his life, except in his appetites for alcohol and sex. The only difference after his exposure to Dodd’s methods is that he behaves in a slightly more civilized way in pursuing his taste for liquor and women. This conclusion seems supported by the echoes of a previous scene with both Dodd and Quell, where Dodd’s temper is controlled in a gentlemanly manner until it is suddenly unleashed rather brutally.

This offers a direct challenge to people of faith. Does personal involvement with religion fundamentally change perceptions and behaviors or does it simply smooth the hard edges? Does faith transform people beyond their self-delusions or does it simply teach them to live out those self-delusions in more genteel and socially acceptable ways? And how can you prove it either way?

These provocative questions were firmly before me after watching “The Master,” a movie that offers many more questions than answers. Only Quell has any semblance of a narrative arc from beginning to end; ambiguity hovers over much of the story and its characters.  Some viewers will find the lack of typical story and straight-forward character development off-putting, as will those offended by strong language, graphic sexuality and nudity, and violence. But the well-scripted and well-crafted film, filled with excellent performances, offers those not easily swayed tantalizing ideas and unsettling questions.