THE MASTER

Champion modern filmmaker PT Anderson (There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, Boogie Nights) commands a mighty game of master and servant in this tale of civilised man and his taming of “the beast”. As traumatised WWII veteran Freddie Quell, Joaquin Phoenix plays the infantile drifter with infamous visceral sensitivity, alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd: powerhouse ringmaster of philosophical movement The Cause, (with allusions to science fiction author, Scientology founder L.R. Hubbard). Set against radically religious ’50s America, Freddie as Dodd’s perfect protégé submits to questionable psychological “Processing,” and so ignites a co-dependent relationship between the men in a tail‐chasing freedom quest. It’s dark, comic opera, with Dodd’s staunch wife Peggy (Amy Adams) in on the game, and Laura Dern appearing in a sparkling bit-part. Jonny Greenwood (Radiohead)’s deft sound and silence ride in the spiralling delirium, as the secrets of The Cause unravel themselves. (DZ) ****