The only sensible way to discuss One Battle After Another is in a form-vs.-content fashion.
Form-wise it’s obviously quite good — driven, vigorous, excellent at times. The longish length doesn’t feel all that burdensome…really. But the insurrectionist, death-to-the-racist-whitey-bad-guys, eat-hot-lead, anti-ICE, lefty-Antifa-women-of-color content (is there even one female speaking role played by a European-descended paleface?) will prove to be a box-office problem over the next week or two. A problem for Average Joes and Janes, I mean.
The radical political stuff is presumably playing well in the costal blue cities. That plus the “okay, Paul Thomas Anderson, a brand, has earned my ticket-buying allegiance” crowd.
From Owen Gleiberman’s 9.27 Variety essay, “One Battle After Another, With Its Thriller Vision of Authoritarianism, Is the Rare Movie That Could Rule the Cultural Conversation”:
