At first glance, Bob Ferguson and Daniel Plainview, the protagonists of PTA’s One Battle After Another and There Will Be Blood, respectively, seem to be opposites. Bob is bumbling, overwhelmed by loss, trying to hold on to a fragment of love; Plainview is domineering, megalomaniacal, visionary. But it’s a question of angle. What we actually do is driven not so much by our character—whatever that is: what is water to a river?—but by our capacity to listen to what is being asked of us, and then afterwards by the uncontrollable forces of nature. Daniel Plainview—as well as Perfidia Beverly Hills and Steven Lockjaw; PTA must get a midnight chuckle out of these names—believe in free will. Bob Ferguson doesn’t. So he listens and hears and does what’s asked of him, pain and incompetence notwithstanding. That’s all there is. That’s all any of us can hope for. Each body and mind can’t help but be aware of the nonsense of the world, and of this benighted country in particular, so we’re driven to reshape it (us), rip it (us) apart, or amplify it (us), committing acts of terrible treachery and blinding sacrifice in the process. That’s fine. But remember that the main character is the moment, and you and I and our children are the stage on which things happen. 8
One Battle After Another, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, performances by Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, and Benicio del Toro, Warner Bros., 2025. Reviewed December 19, 2025.