Movie Review: The Master

So, you’ve read about The Master, the hot new movie supposedly inspired by the life of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, which won awards out the wazoo at the Venice Film Festival, has garnered rave reviews, and is apparently going to earn Oscars for its all-star cast that includes Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Laura Dern. You are thinking about going to see it since you love movies but have no interest in 99 percent of the formulaic crap Hollywood churns out that targets people with the IQ of deer ticks but this sounds intelligent, like something you might enjoy.

Save your $11, stay home and watch Here Comes Honey Boo Boo re-runs instead. The Master is that bad. Pretentious. Self-indulgent. Nonsensical. I can’t imagine how the script  -- if there was one – must have read, or why anyone at the studio signed off on it.

Here’s the plot:

Phoenix, who mumbles, rendering many of his lines unintelligible, which is probably a blessing, is an alcoholic sailor stationed in the Pacific during the final days of WWII. His sailor buddies build a sand sculpture of a nude woman. Phoenix has simulated sex with it then masturbates on the beach. 

The war ends. Phoenix celebrates by ingesting a cocktail made from torpedo fuel. (Other ingredients from which he makes cocktails during the movie include paint thinner, photo developing fluid and Lysol.) During his separation interview, he identifies inkblots as sex organs so he’s sent to a military hospital, after which he becomes a department store photographer. He shares one of his signature cocktails with a model who shows him her boobs, gets in a fight with a customer, runs out of the store and becomes a cabbage picker.

A fellow picker dies after drinking one of his concoctions, so he runs away and hops on a ship docked in San Francisco that, unbeknownst to him, has been chartered by Hoffman, the Hubbard character. Hoffman likes Phoenix’s cocktails, and hires him to crew the boat, which is sailing to New York where Hoffman is going to put on a demonstration of his religion to a group of bored society folks.

In New York, one of the society people makes fun of Hoffman. Phoenix visits the guy’s apartment and beats – maybe kills – him. We never find out. Phoenix may have revealed what happened but, like I said, he mumbles.

The road shows travels to Philly for another demonstration at the home of Dern. Hoffman makes Phoenix walk back and back between the wall and window of a dining room for days as cult members watch. Hoffman is arrested for fraud. Phoenix goes bat shit trying to prevent the police from taking him away and winds up in an adjacent cell.

They then move to Phoenix (Arizona, not Joaquin) where Hoffman introduces phase II of his new religion, parts of which contradict phase I. 

Phoenix goes to Boston to find a girl he once dated but learns she has married. Hoffman tracks Phoenix down and begs him to return. Phoenix and Hoffman reconnect in London. Hoffman’s wife, Adams, who was pregnant in earlier scenes but isn’t any more, informs Phoenix he shouldn’t stay unless he is prepared to make a billion-year commitment. Hoffman sings “Slow Boat to China” and tears flow down Phoenix’s face as he realizes he will soon be collecting his paycheck because the idiotic movie is almost over and he doesn’t have to pretend it makes sense any more.

I recently read that Hollywood is having its worst box office year in 30 years.

Good. It’s creatively bankrupt. Might as well be financially bankrupt, too.