The Master (2012)
Storyline
Freddie, a volatile, heavy-drinking veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, finds some semblance of a family when he stumbles onto the ship of Lancaster Dodd, the charismatic leader of a new "religion" he forms after World War II.
Directors
Writers
Cast
Joaquin Phoenix, Jesse Plemons, Lena Endre, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, Kevin J. O'Connor, Martin Dew, Ambyr Childers, Laura Dern, Madisen Beaty, David Warshofsky, Christopher Evan Welch, Amy Ferguson, Joshua Close, Rami Malek, Patty McCormack, Barbara Brownell, Jennifer Neala Page, Mike Howard, Bruce Goodchild, Frank Bettag, Mimi Cozzens, Jillian Bell, Kevin J. Walsh, Brady Rubin, Jill Andre, Barlow Jacobs, Tom Knickerbocker, Mari Kearney
Trailer
Reviews
100
Two things stand out: the extraordinary command of cinematic technique, which alone is nearly enough to keep a connoisseur on the edge of his seat the entire time, and the tremendous portrayals by Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman of two entirely antithetical men
100
The Guardian
The themes may be contentious, but the handling is perfect. If there were ever a movie to cause the lame to walk and the blind to see, The Master may just be it.
100
Written, directed, acted, shot, edited and scored with a bracing vibrancy that restores your faith in film as an art form, The Master is nirvana for movie lovers. Anderson mixes sounds and images into a dark, dazzling music that is all his own.
90
The writer-director's typically eccentric sixth feature is a sustained immersion in a series of hypnotic moods and longueurs, an imposing picture that thrillingly and sometimes maddeningly refuses to conform to expectations.
90
On reflection, and despite these cavils, we should bow to The Master, because it gives us so much to revere, starting with the image that opens the film and recurs right up to the end-the turbid, blue-white wake of a ship. There goes the past, receding and not always redeemable, and here comes the future, waiting to churn us up.
