Battle Tested: Leonardo DiCaprio Fronts First Look at Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another”

One day after Warner Bros. announced the official title for Paul Thomas Anderson’s mysterious new movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another, the studio dropped the first teaser.

While you won’t glean much from this brief 21-second blast, you will at least get a sense of the mood of Anderson’s latest. It couldn’t be further from his last film, Licorice Pizza, his dreamy look back at the San Fernando Valley of the 1970s (where and when Anderson grew up), exploring young love, the exuberance of youth, and the ephemerality of our teenage dreams.

One Battle After Another, on the contrary, appears to be as true to its title as Licorice Pizza was to its own—we open with DiCaprio seated outdoors and sipping a beer, then being forced to cover his ears while his very pregnant companion (Teyana Taylor) fires an automatic rifle in a wide-open Western space. That gunfire continues to play over images of DiCaprio’s character running, Taylor’s character walking down a road, a baby in a crib, and then the words, “What are you gonna do about this baby?” That’s immediately followed by the sound of a firearm being cocked and actress Chase Infiniti taking her turn at the outdoor firing range, backed by a bunch of women in what appear to be nun’s habits. What in the world is going on here?

These images are followed by more violence and roughness—Sean Penn briefly strongarms Infiniti’s character at the 13-second mark, and Penn says the teaser’s final words: “Just when you think you’ve got a handle on things.”

Anderson directs from an original script he wrote and is working once again with his favorite composer, Jonny Greenwood, the polymathic musician who once played in a little band called Radiohead. Joining DiCaprio, Taylor, Infiniti, and Penn are Regina Hall, Benicio Del Toro, Wood Harris, Alana Haim (one of the stars of Licorice Pizza), and D.W. Moffett.

One Battle After Another was recently moved from an August release date to September 26, putting it squarely in the window usually reserved for awards hopefuls. Considering Anderson’s pedigree and the incredible cast and crew he’s got, it’s immediately one of the most intriguing films on the fall schedule.

The film was shot on location in California, with additional on-location filming in El Paso, Texas. Anderson

Check out the teaser below. One Battle After Another arrives on September 26.

Featured image: Leonardo DiCaprio in “One Battle After Another.” Courtesy Warner Bros.