Drama [USA:R, 2 h 24 min]
Joaquin Phoenix, Price Carson, Mike Howard, Sarah Shoshana David
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
IMDb rating: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7.1/10 (86,260 votes)
Returning from Navy service in World War II, Freddie Quell drifts through a series of breakdowns. Finally he stumbles upon a cult which engages in exercises to clear emotions and he becomes deeply involved with them. (IMDb)
Critical reception:
The film received universal acclaim, with the acting performances receiving high praise, especially Phoenix. Review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 85% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 222 reviews, with a rating average of 8.1 out of 10. The consensus reads, "Smart, powerfully acted, beautifully filmed, and solidly engrossing, The Master extends writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's winning streak of challenging films for serious audiences." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film ended up receiving a rating average of 86, based on 43 reviews, considered to be "universally acclaimed". Kenneth Turan of Los Angeles Times, in praising Anderson's directing and Phoenix's performance, wrote: "Phoenix, known for immersing himself in Oscar-nominated roles in Gladiator and Walk the Line, makes Quell frighteningly believable." About the film itself, he stated: "The Master takes some getting used to. This is a superbly crafted film that's at times intentionally opaque, as if its creator didn't want us to see all the way into its heart of darkness." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a perfect "A" grade, stating: "It's also one of the great movies of the year - an ambitious, challenging, and creatively hot-blooded, but cool toned project that picks seriously at knotty ideas about American personality, success, rootlessness, master-disciple dynamics, and father-son mutually assured destruction." (Wikipedia)
Awards:
More info at IMDb, Freebase, Wikipedia, Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic.
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