Kenneth Branagh

Chilling, hypnotic and strikingly beautiful, Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" is a powerful essay on post-WWII America, faith and identity. Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffmann are electrifying, like two expert magicians at the top of their game.But "The Master," like many of Anderson's films, may be polarizing. Anderson, along with Phoenix and Hoffman, give us plenty to digest, especially about the effects of war and what compels people to follow a startup Scientology-like religion.Freddie Quell is an honored WWII Navy vet who finds himself lost and abandoned after the war. Completely unsure of his future or of his self-worth, Quell becomes a reactionary figure, a self-destructive alcoholic, a publicly violent and disruptive vagabond. When he crashes a party on a yacht headed to New York, he meets the erudite, philosophical author Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Dodd, looking at Freddie as a wild beast in need of taming, uses the Vet as a guinea pig for his newly-fo...

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