The Master

DON'T DO IT!!! I DON'T CARE WHAT THOSE OTHER MOVIE REVIEWERS SAID ABOUT THIS FILM, DON'T DO IT!!! And basically what I mean by that is DON'T spend your money on a ticket. DON'T spend any money on popcorn or soda or candy. DON'T find a comfortable seat in the theater (you know the ones, right in the middle of the theater). And do NOT, for the love of whatever, do NOT waste two hours and seventeen minutes of your life wathing The Master. This go nowhere, do nothing movie does just that, it goes nowhere and does nothing and because of that, those two hours and seventeen PRECIOUS minutes of your life are minutes you will NEVER get back.

Performances were steller. If you like Joaquin Phoenix then you will like him in this movie (though I don't think he's doing any real "acting", I think he's just being himself). If you love Phillip Seymour Hoffman then you will love him in this drivel because he's the best thing on the screen. He's magnetic, as are all of the performances really. The biggest problem with this film in my humble opinion is the story. The reason being there isn't one. In movies like these, where there are two strong characters where one supposedly has it all together and the other is falling apart at the seams there is usually an arc for that tragic character. He usually goes from bad to good or from fragile to steadfast. You see it unfold right there in front of your very eyes on the screen. The Master has those two characters in spades. There is no wondering or guessing who's who and who's doing what. Granted, Hoffman's Lancaster Dodd isn't without his flaws but he holds the facade together so perfectly that anyone who takes a mere glance at the man would see perfection, contentment, and the confidence of one that has it all together. Joaquin Phoenix' Freddie Quell is his absolute opposite.

Freddie is a lush, and the worse possible kind. You know, those guys that drink paint thinner or rubbing alcohol just to get to the alcohol, that's Freddie. For some reason these two men feel like that need each other. Dodd see's Freddie as a free spirit and you get the distinct impression that he's envious of Freddie's freedom to come and go as he wishes, to answer to no one. Freddie sees Dodd as someone he wishes he were, someone smart, unafraid, and unabashedly loved and amired anywhere he goes. While you enjoy the dynamic between these two men and the satellite cast, Amy Adams is frightening as Lancaster's wife Peggy Dodd, you soon realize that there really is NO STORY! There is no plot to this movie and it all seems like an excercise in the art form of film by a director with an oversized ego. That guy would be Paul Thomas Anderson who IS talented (see Magnolia, Punch Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood) but here he swings for the fences and misses wildly.

I read somewhere where a critic said you have to watch this movie twice in order to really get it. I feel the only reason you should watch a movie twice is if you like it, not to "get" it. That told me all I needed to know about this movie, I just wish I read that remark before I saw this movie and not afterwards. Skip it and see something else and i'll see you at the theater.