Film Review: THE MASTER

One good reason to see the movie "The Master" is because it feels so good when it stops. Really, I was never so happy to see anything as that final black screen. As I joyously escaped the darkness and ran out to carpe what little remained of the diem, I witnessed another just-sprung patron in the lobby irately demanding a refund because the film was "a load of hogwash and a piece of crap."

Freddie enjoying some turpentine on ice.

All kidding aside, this film is both disturbing and disturbed. Rave reviews by esteemed critics got us there, coupled with our deep admiration of the talented Philip Seymour Hoffman--an actor so gifted he deserves two first names. What I didn't realize going in was that the movie would be such a bummer, mostly because some of those critics had called it "riotously funny."  I must have missed that line, because what I saw for over two hours was an under-the-microscope look at Freddie Quell, a loony alcoholic war veteran filled with rage and a touch of post-traumatic stress disorder. Adding to the pervading discomfort was the actor Joaquin Phoenix's real-life nasty upper lip which, unless you are his mother or his girlfriend, is distracting to put it kindly and downright ugly to not. Then again, in certain lights--and believe me, we see Freddie in all lights since he is on screen for 95% of the time, if not more--he can look like a young Marlon Brando. This actually added to my downward spiral because I remembered that Marlon Brando has been dead for years, and besides, Joaquin Phoenix is no Marlon Brando.

The undertow dragging the media frenzy about this film is that it might be about Scientology and Hoffman's character might be suggestive of that religion's founder, L. Ron Hubbard. Nobody knows but the director and the writer, and they were not with me tonight. Instead I was with my husband, who knew nothing more than I did but seemed to have a better time. That might be because the movie's other theme is Freddie's overwhelming obsession with thoughts of sex, vaginas and naked women and, secondarily, engaging in sex with naked women's vaginas. If you also enjoy those things, you might like the movie a tad more. But unless you are studying to become a psychiatrist or learning to tend bar--Freddie mixes up specialty cocktails whenever he has the time and the ingredients, including Lysol, torpedo fuel and paint thinner--do yourself a big favor and skip this one.