What happens when a violent, alcoholic ex-marine drifter stows away on a yacht and is found by a charismatic, self-deluded cult leader? The two become the best of friends of course, and form a symbiotic relationship. The saint has found his sinner to cure, and the accident of it must mean that there are higher forces at work. At least in the mind of the master, who has been chosen to do great work, and so the bond is forged. Freddy undergoes "processing" a kind of suggestive hypnosis to recall past painful memories, some attempt to fix the present by changing the past in the mind...or something like that. Getting his frustrations out with this guy over hard home-made booze makes him feel good and there's free food, drink and pussy all round so he sticks around and has a great time, belonging for a while. His violent temper gives the master something to chastise, in turn giving the master opportunity to alleviate his mostly concealed anger, which he denies and covers up with pseudo-philosophical made-up ideas and rituals which only turn out to be self-defeating because they are simply denial, so when pesky critics start questioning him about his claims to cure cancer through mind time travel he hilariously loses his s--t, before quickly restraining himself, because he doesn't have the answers unless he's doing his song-and-dance and his followers are hypnotized. Thankfully he has his beloved beast Freddy to go out and do the dirty work for him without tainting his reputation, roughing up the unbelievers. He returns to tell the master of what he has done and is told off, giving the master his authority in a viciously logical yet kind of nice relationship.
If it sounds like Lancaster Dodd (the master) is a villain, fear not, there are no villains in the film, just humans. He is a cynical charlatan, but like Freddy he's also basically trying to get by and survive, albeit misleading people along the way, or is he? I think one of the ways to find some kind of truth within yourself is to exert yourself in absurd endeavours to the point of mad frustration. And the rituals this group uses are indeed absurd. In one sequence the cult tries to cure Freddy through a series of mind games. Dodd's wife asks him what colour her eyes are, then commands him to "make them black," then "make them brown." They're green, not any other colour, and yet they're also black, and brown because what is green? He's asked to pace between a wall and a window and describe them in different ways, and he reaches a critical point of frustration because no matter how many different ways he describes them they are in fact just a window and a wall, because that's what he's been taught, and no matter what they might actually be beyond that, to him alone they are just a window and a wall. The tree of possibility burns until there's just the trunk. As he paces back and forth he posits that he could leave any time he wants, but he is trapped there because it is his choice. His choice indeed. And that's it. Dodd preaches about rising above emotions, above the animal self, that we are not animals, but truly we are spirits exiting in eternity, and yet he cannot stop himself from lashing out when doubt and scepticism ruins his show. Freddy improves greatly within the cult, and yet when out in public confronted by a naysayer he tackles him to the ground and slaps him around, and he's back right where he started, all over again. So this cult is very useful indeed, if only to completely and utterly destroy all hope of being anything except what you are, which is a truth all spiritual paths can lead you to no matter how silly you find the practices. Religion comes in many forms. When a woman questions Dodd about his reasoning he can't say he doesn't have any so he loses it. "Just because" is the answer but most people don't like that because there must be a reason. He makes his own because he doesn't want to
I don't know whether this film is anti-religion or for, but I don't think it's either. It's a double-edged sword for sure, on one hand Freddy is a martyr, whose very existence disproves everything that brings people and money to the cult. He cannot be cured because there is nothing to cure and his life of hard drinking, scrapping and generally stumbling around being incoherent is holy and pure and needs no cleansing, so then what is organized religion for? He could stay with the cult, and keep up the lie with the charade of trying to "get better," or he could leave and the cult would remain a charade. What exactly is the cult? For sure it does help Freddy in a way, by reassuring him that he's not wrong, and he even makes fun of the ritual in the end while screwing a prostitute. In the end he's right back where he started, on the beach lying next to a pair of tits he's made in the sand.
The film is funny, compelling, interesting, and beautifully shot and put together, with loads of great images and ideas, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Jaquin (I don't know how to spell it) Pheonix. I love it. I'd forgotten that Paul Thomas Anderson makes great films.
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