Watching this movie was One Battle After Another

Oh, joy, it's the one that everyone's talking about, but I don't know why.

I understand that this movie had a lot of things that seem Relevant to the Current Political Landscape, but this is definitely an example of the sum being far less than it's individual parts.

I can see why people are drawn to it on the surface level, and definitely when it comes to my fellow White People. It tells the sort of stories we would love to see about ourselves: a well meaning Dude does the best he can to be an ally and a true supporter of the Cause. But like the character of Bob himself, those elements end up being the least interesting part of the story.

While the story is for whatever reason centered around Bob, a white member of a radical Black political group, he is always the support for the true main characters that find themselves around him. I always found myself distracted by what was happening with his daughter Willa, the underground workings of Sensei, even the radical group of nuns where Willa hides out. I even want to know more about the Christmas themed white nationalist cult that Lockjaw is trying to join but no! I am constantly pulled back to this fumbling stoner idiot for no god damn reason.

In any other story, Leonardo's character would be the side character, the comedic punchline to the actual main character of the story. But because Paul Thomas Anderson chose to center this story around the white guy I have to watch this man fail at everything he tries to do, and spend way too long doing it. He doesn't even manage to rise to the occasion and save his own child. She does it herself.

The incredible supporting cast, the impressive cinematography, and the narrative push are all wasted on a man who can't do anything right. A guy who did nothing to deserve his prominent place in the story.

It is a theme that reflects the movie as a whole: the run time is wasted centering the wrong person in the narrative. If we had only chosen to center the people who are putting in the work instead of the one guy who just happened to be there, we would all be having a much better time.

Will it get all the Oscars? Probably. But a movie that deals with this subject matter that came out the same year as Sinners and Eddington should probably be taking an appropriate backseat when it comes to award consideration, in my opinion. Both of those movies dealt with the tougher subjects and didn't flinch in the ways that Paul Thomas Anderson did here.