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| Movie poster for The Master |
Slim at Gone Elsewhere does an excellent job of explaining the plot, so if you don’t know the plot, go there first … then come back here and let me explain to you why this movie is a piece of shit.
I went into it thinking it had the potential to be good because Paul Thomas Anderson made Magnolia, and Magnolia has some wonderfully nuanced and well-developed women characters, so I know he’s capable of not creating films exclusively about white dudes talking about stuff, but fuck, I honestly couldn’t get over his absolute reveling in the incessant blathering of white dudes to other white dudes.
Don’t get me wrong; Joaquin Phoenix’s emotionally disturbed character, Freddie Quell, totally makes a sand-woman on the beach—complete with breasts and spread legs—that he then proceeds to hump and fingerfuck in front of a group of cheering white dudes (even they get uncomfortable after a few seconds of this) before beating off into the oh-so-vast and Oscar-worthy cinematographically-shot ocean, but as far as women characters go, the sexually assaulted sand-woman left a little to be desired.
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| Freddie Quell pinching a sand-woman’s nipple in The Master |
Okay, okay, Amy Adams appears a few times, once to read a naughty sex passage from a book to Freddie—who wouldn’t want to hear Amy Adams say “opening the lips of her cunt” (or something) for no discernible reason?—and she shows up again to jerk off her husband (The Master!) Philip Seymour Hoffman over a fucking bathroom sink, so I don’t want to mislead anyone—women exist in this sea of white dudes talking about stuff, but in between giving handjobs, carrying around infants, defending their men, and gratuitously exposing their breasts to drunk and violent sociopaths, they’re just kinda blah.
I don’t want to mislead anyone. I’m not saying I haven’t exposed a breast or two to a sociopath in my day, but that doesn’t mean I found these ladies relatable, and that includes the violated sand-woman.
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| Amy Adams in The Master, looking pissed |
And I wish I knew what to say about Freddie’s love for a 16-year-old girl named Doris, especially since he looks like he’s in his mid-50s throughout the film. Okay, in fairness, Freddie only interacts with Doris in his memories (because this is art, people), so it makes sense that we never actually get to see Doris age. (But still, Freddie was either like 30 when she was 16, or they should’ve hired some better fucking makeup artists.)
Regardless of the potential statutory rape situation, Freddie can’t seem to get over his First Love because then we wouldn’t have the quintessential white dude movie plot dilemma: there’s a girl he can’t have, or a girl who died, or a girl he lost, or a girl he has to save—if there’s one thing we all know about films about white dudes talking about stuff, it’s that women emotionally fuck up white dudes so hard!
Eeeek, bitches, can we cool it already?
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| Doris and Freddie in Freddie’s creepy memory/flashback in The Master |
This film will probably win a million Oscars and other accolades because the people who determine award winners in Hollywood are white dudes who like watching movies about other white dudes talking about stuff. And the critics lauding this film? They’re mostly white dudes who like helping white dudes who determine award winners in Hollywood vote for movies about white dudes talking about stuff. So yeah, expect this to grace the list of Best Picture Oscar Nominees.
Getting back to this movie being a piece of shit, here’s the thing: a million people will say, “Stephanie, you obviously just don’t get this film. It’s genius! You don’t understand art! It’s a metaphor for the ways in which religion and absolute power corrupt! These dudes are supposed to be awful!” Perhaps all of that is true. Except, of course, for the fact that none if it is true.
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| Freddie Quell, boom |
Okay, on a less pissy day, I might go along with the argument that Anderson is attempting a successful metaphor regarding men and religion and corruption, but that doesn’t blind me to the fact that he ultimately uses women characters tropes of women to move forward the fairly boring plight of white dudes struggling with … something. I certainly don’t buy the argument either that this is just how things were back then i.e. whenever this film is supposed to take place; there’s an important difference between depicting a time period and straight-up worshiping it.
The point is, if your film contains about three speaking women total (oh, and a woman made of sand), and each of these women is constantly doing one of the following—standing by her man, carrying around babies, jerking dudes off, existing only in the occasional flashback, lying on a couch and talking about how she remembers a penis poking her when she was still a fetus in the womb—or, if she’s a literal fucking object (i.e. she’s made out of sand), then your film suffers from, at the very least, lazy writing.
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| The Master and his ladies |
Yes, I just said that Paul Thomas Anderson, creator of There Will Be Blood (white dudes all over the place), Boogie Nights (a movie about a white dude with a giant cock), Hard Eight (white dudes), Punch Drunk Love (a movie about a white dude phone sex operator pimp or whatever), and Magnolia (a movie in which we get to hear famous white dude Tom Cruise tell us to “respect the cock”), got particularly lazy with his women characters in this one. Movies made by a white dude about white dudes talking about stuff—stuff like power and corruption in capitalism and religion, for instance—can succeed (There Will Be Blood)—just leave the fucking recycled caricatures of women out of it (There Will Be Blood).
Of course, then we wouldn’t be treated to last-line-of-the-film-gems like this:
Freddie (talking to a woman while she’s riding him): “You’re the bravest girl I’ve ever met. Now stick it back in, it fell out.”
If you want a different, slightly more intellectual (ha) take on The Master, you should read this review by Didion, who writes “… this film shows that Anderson has a lot more sensitivity toward women than his prior films would suggest.”
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| Preach it! |
I’m sorry to hear it didn’t work for you. I agree with so much of what you’ve said — it’s truly a movie about two men, one of whom has the most awful, confused attitudes toward women (made of flesh or sand). But I think what ultimately worked for me was that although the film doesn’t really lose its focus from the two men, *their* respective attitudes toward women are so primary in the film’s major themes that I found it actually pretty fascinating.
And that last scene … honestly, I think you’ve got it a little skewed. I think there was an unexpected sweetness in that scene between two people truly enjoying themselves, laughing even as Freddie trots out some of The Master’s lines. I think we were supposed to realize that despite it all, Freddie had changed — and that having a happy shag with a woman was like the light streaming into that room.
So yeah, this is a film about men. And good lordy, all “serious” films these days seem to be about men. (Looper, Dark Knight Rises, blah blah blah.) But I found this one to be smart and riveting and, with Amy Adams, flipped some of the usual stereotypes.
I read your review *after* I wrote this, and you made some wonderful points that I honestly hadn’t considered.
This is a film that I will most likely rewatch (it definitely warrants a second viewing).
And what the hell was Landry (Friday Night Lights)/Todd (Breaking Bad) doing in this movie? LOL
i don’t disagree that this a movie that the academy will eat up b/c its about white dudes doin stuff (groundbreaking), i think you missed out on an important aspect of amy adam’s character. in a lot of ways, i think she was phillip seymor hoffman’s character (dodd was his name?) ‘master.’ – i got that she had a lot of control over him and as a result, had a lot of control over their their business/religion/cult whatever it was. i think your description of her role is shallow,you don’t give her character enough credit. But looking back, I see the movie more as not the story of a guru and his would be ultimate disciple, but the wife of a ‘prophet’, (which ultimately could be expanded to a wife of any man trying to achieve something, frustrated with life, capable of much but gets too much in his own way) and that is a fascinating scenario that she pulled off amazingly.
i also understand not enjoying the narrative or characters but stylistically, this movie was brilliant and to call it a piece of shit is kind of….sad. (the score is brilliant too)
Okay, maybe. But haven’t we had enough of THAT trope? The whole “Tony Soprano may be the mob boss, but it’s really CARMELA who’s in control” thing? The woman in the background with her secret wiles, making shit happen? I’m over it.
Yes, it was stylistically very pretty, just like all Wes Anderson films. The score was lovely, too.
i’m a “white dude” myself, and I hated this movie too. might have been nice if something had happened at some point to constitute a storyline. Amy Adams talking dirty is about the only reason any dude of any colour might watch this, and frankly it’s not worth sitting through such a long, crap film for those 10 seconds. I consider this movie in insult to my arse, which had to sit through it for 2 1/2 hours. This is so boring it makes “there will be blood” look like Raiders of the Lost Ark
you couldn’t pay me enough to rewatch this crap.
This is actually the worst article on the Internet.
Spot on. I will never watch another movie without consulting bitch flicks first.