I think it's fair to say that for the last decade or so our lives have been hijacked by ideologies – left, right, far left, far right, capitalism, socialism, pro-Trump, anti-Trump, you name it.
Its ridiculous that most of these ideologies aren't even our own but imposed upon us by others whether it is political institutions or the media. And we are so trapped by them that we either become followers of these ideologies without knowing or become so suffocated that we lose sight of what is really important.One Battle After Another is certainly a film about ideologies, but moreover, it is a film about love. That love and relationships transcend ideologies. The choices we make, who we choose to save, and even who we hate, are not necessarily based on concepts and beliefs alone, but love and emotions.
Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) belonged to a far-left militant revolutionary group, the French 75 when he was young and fell in love and had a baby with fellow member Perfidia (Teyana Taylor). Now he is a middle-aged paranoid stoner and his wife had left to chase her freedom; their daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti) is now a teenager and his past has caught up with them. Steven (Sean Penn), a military officer who has past affiliations with Perfidia has kidnapped Willa and now, broken and old-age, Bob must face another battle to rescue his daughter.
A leimotif in the film is the riddle "what time is it?" which Bob must answer in order to get support from his old revolutionary friends. He constantly fails to answer the riddle and is frustrated by it until at the end the answer is revealed to be "Time doesn't exist, but it controls us anyway".
In a sense this answer describes what ideologies are like to us. Concepts like far-left and far-right, socialism and capitalism, don't exist in a physical sense but our lives are dictated, even controlled by them anyway, sometimes even without a mean of escape. Just like we can't escape from time, or more correctly – the concept of time.
So perhaps we should all relax a little bit about concepts and ideas because ultimately, when you are down and hungry, an idea cannot fill your stomach.
One very interesting plot-point is that around the middle of the film, it is revealed to us that Willa isn't really Bob's daughter, but Steven's. This is a call-back to the theme that love is transcendental, that it not only transcends ideologies, but even blood and heritage. It is never revealed whether Bob knows of the truth but he chooses to rescue Willa anyway and perhaps this is Paul Thomas Anderson's way of saying that love is even more important than blood.
So next time before we shout out angry phrases about pro-Isreal or pro-Palestine, MAGA or anti-Trump, remember there are starving children in Gaza and feeding their stomach is far more important than your little concepts of what's right and wrong.
2026-04-20
One Battle After Another
