The Master -2012- -

A volatile, troubled WWII naval veteran drifts into a post-war America and finds a surrogate father, a sparring partner, and an ideological adversary in the charismatic leader of a burgeoning religious movement called "The Cause."

Ultimately, The Master does not offer easy answers about the cult-like movements it depicts. Instead, it asks profound questions about freedom. Can a human being ever truly be "free," or are we always serving a master—whether that master is a charismatic leader, a chemical addiction, or our own biological impulses? In the final, poetic moments, the film suggests that perhaps the greatest struggle is not finding a master, but learning to live with the person we are when no one is watching. It remains a challenging, opaque, and utterly essential piece of filmmaking. the master -2012-

Psychological Drama / Character Study / Anti-Biopic (fictionalized take on L. Ron Hubbard/Scientology origins). A volatile, troubled WWII naval veteran drifts into

The brilliance of Anderson’s screenplay is in how it subverts expectations. We expect Freddie to be brainwashed. Instead, Freddie absorbs the language of The Cause but fails to internalize its discipline. He continues to drink, to fight, and to disrupt Dodd’s events. He becomes the id that threatens to tear down the superego. In the final, poetic moments, the film suggests