The Master

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

(R)

****

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Those expecting “a muckraking exposé” of Scientology might be disappointed by Paul Thomas Anderson’s “superbly crafted” new film, said Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times. Though The Master features an “impeccable” Philip Seymour Hoffman as a spiritual guru reminiscent of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Anderson’s interest isn’t small-bore history. Instead, he’s created a fictional meditation on the intersection of one man’s “need to be mastered” and another’s will to power. Joaquin Phoenix proves “extraordinary” as a damaged World War II vet who becomes a cult leader’s guinea pig, said Joe Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal. As this broken man entrusts his soul to the behavior-changing techniques of a charismatic riddler, the very look of the film—shot on the same high-resolution 65 mm film used for Lawrence of Arabia—asks us to see his tale as universal. At times, The Master “can feel like too much”—an overload of absurd human striving, said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. But this study in the folly of greatness “comes as close as anything I’ve seen recently to being a great movie.”