The Master

Here’s a film that seems to have been made with the belief that it is the journey, not the destination, that matters--and a good thing, too, since this story doesn’t seem to really go anywhere. P.T. Anderson is no slouch at the moviemaking thing, and this piece does have its interesting moments. But filmmakers forget, at their peril, that most audiences do not want engage in deep introspection; they want to be able to form some kind of bond with the characters presented. That can’t happen here; we never know enough about Joaquin Phoenix’s character to judge him adequately. The mere mechanics of character creation will hold the audience’s attention, and perhaps even admiration, in the hands of a brilliant actor--witness Daniel Day-Lewis in Anderson’s There Will Be Blood--but Phoenix does not hit that mark here (nor do his castmates, for that matter). Ultimately, this one falls into the noble failure category.