"The Master" is probably the most challenging and polarizing film of the year, some people went away scratching their heads, I was extremely mystified by it. A lot of that had to do with the lead performance by Joaquin Phoenix who plays the troubled World War II naval officer Freddie Quells. At the beginning of the film, we notice something is not right with Freddie, the war is over and he seems to be suffering from some kind of shell shock. After Freddie accidentally poisons a farm worker with his own brand of alcohol, he escapes custody and finds himself on the boat of a cult leader by the name of Lancaster Dodd (Phillip Seymore Hoffman). Dodd forms a special bond with Freddie, not so much a son, or a brother, but more of a pet. Dodd teaches Freddie the ways of The Cause which is the name of the religion he is the teacher of. Freddie soon becomes the churches greatest disciple and becomes Dodd's right hand man. Despite protests from Dodd's own family including his wife (Amy Adams) that Freddie is a drifter, Dodd decides to keep him.
"The Master" is a difficult world to enter into, but Freddie is our way in. Many people criticized the character of Freddie to be unlikable, I didn't understand this. To me Freddie represents a lost soul sent adrift in society, only to finally have something to believe in with Dodd and The Cause but to have that taken away. There is a touching flashback where we see Freddie with the girl that he was in love with and planned to marry, until he joined the navy. Later he revisits the house of the girl and we are told by her mother that she has moved on. By this time, he realizes that everything he has learned as the truth has been a lie, all he has left is Dodd.
The fact thatPhoenix creates Freddie out of thin air which is another aspect I admired from the performance. His character is full of many tics and mannerisms, but Phoenix never overdoes it, he doesn't rely on it, and occasionally he's able to burst through the screen with impromptu anger and turmoil that remind you of that great generation of actors that were lead by Brando, Dean, and Clift.
But sometimes it just comes down to one scene to show you what an actor has in him. The processing scene between Freddie and Dodd is a sequence of pure acting bravado by the two men, but Phoenix especially shines, it was here that the film grabbed a hold of me and afterwards I couldn't let go. It was hard to ignore Phoenix or "The Master" after that scene which I would say may be the best single scene of the year, it was hard to look anywhere else for such a performance.
But just to name a few of the males who I strongly considered, certainly Daniel Day Lewis deserves mention for his quiet understated performance in "Lincoln", a performance I appreciated even more than his recent bravura showcases in "There Will be Blood", and "Gangs of New York". Denzel Washington was his usual solid self giving a quiet effective performance in "Flight" and perhaps no one surprised me more this year than Bradley Cooper in "Silver Linings Playbook", for what is indeed his best performance ever.
There were two comic performances I need to mention, for comic actors are so often forgotten, but Jack Black has never been better than he was as the lovable convicted murderer in "Bernie", and the same could be said for Sean William Scott as the tough guy with a soft spot for his team mates in the hilarious "Goon". Joseph Gorden Levitt showed off his leading man charisma in "Looper" and I just wanted to mention Colin Farrell who plays the straight man to all the psychopaths in "Seven Psychopaths" God I love that move!
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