The Master

After returning from his service in the Navy during World War II, Freddy Quill can't find his place in civilian life. The injuries inflicted by the war remained not only on the body, but also in the soul, and Quill tries to fill this flame with alcohol. He does not last long at any job: he was fired from a photo salon for beating a client, from a cabbage farm - because of problems with homemade booze. And so this restless, hungry and angry fragment of a person nails Lancaster Dodd, a charismatic letterer of a pseudo-philosophical movement, which many consider a neo-religious cult, to the yacht. Lancaster picks up Freddy, takes him into his "family" and even makes him his closest assistant. But such "currents" are rarely treated. much more often they cause even more spiritual injuries. Read more "The Master" is not the first and most likely not the last film by Paul Thomas Anderson, in which the director shows us people who preach or, on the contrary, struggle with it. In his previous film Nafta, the director spent two straight years trying to look at faith from a different angle. This time, the basis was Scientology, the birth of which was told in the film "The Master". Here it is also worth mentioning another film by Paul Anderson, "Magnolia", where the character of Tom Cruise (among other supporters of Scientology) represented a modern preacher who faced real problems. Basically, in these films, the director tries to show that any faith can be shaken, the shakiness of this phenomenon. And that truth and pure thoughts are carried and found by people who, on the contrary, are pure and are agnostics or atheists. Initially, they wanted to award the main role to Jeremy Renner instead of Joaquin Phoenix, but after a series of minor disagreements, they took Phoenix. According to the director himself, the first sketches for the picture "Nafta" served as the basis for the plot of "The Master". Which, in principle, is felt. As a result, the story of the birth of a new religion, Scientology, was certainly of high quality.