So I guess this is supposed to be a portrait of an “artist”, all temperamental and weird, and his relationship to women. And I guess it is that, more or less.

But it’s also a movie about horrible people being kinda fucked up and awful, and it’s redeemed from Scorsese-level unwatchability by virtue of Paul Thomas Anderson having a sense of humor and making a movie with characters whose awfulness is kinda funny, in a disturbing black humor sort of way.

The movie is pretty and atmospheric, and it’s clearly well-made, but it’s maybe the weakest PTA movie I’ve seen and not really something that I’d be talking about in a best-of-the-year conversation in a serious way.