The Master: The Power of Cults & Filling the Void for a Family

This post contains spoilers for The Master

It’s been almost 8 years and The Master is a film that has managed to linger on top of the mind of many of its viewers, who still remember it every time either Paul Thomas Anderson (the film’s writer/director) is mentioned, or whether somebody asks about which are the best performances from Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams or Joaquin Phoenix. (For our review of The Master, click here)

As a three-time Oscar nominee for the 3 actors mentioned previously, The Master is a psychological film that has very carefully developed a deep web of factors that align themselves to portray a very powerful theme. Its theme can be interpreted in various manners, but here we want to focus on two principal topics that the movie addresses at its core: the search for filling a void that having no family leaves inside a person and the power and manipulativeness of cults. We’ll explore how both strongly connect to drive the journey of Freddie (Joaquin Phoenix) through the plot.

Filling a Deep Void…

The opening sequence of The Master shows us, with almost no dialogue, Freddie’s last couple of days with the Marines. We are shown images as he passes almost all his time in solitude while almost every other of his comrades socialize to pass the time. There’s a moment where the others build a sand-woman at the beach and he jokingly plays with it in front of the others, implying that his thoughts about it immediately are about sex.

Only moments later, Freddie returns when no one is watching to lay down and hug the woman in the sand, suggesting that in his deepest desires, there’s a need for somebody to love; someone with whom he can find the comfort he is currently lacking.

Upon returning from his service, he takes the job of a mall photographer and passes the time shooting pictures of happy family members. He can’t escape the superficiality of his life and his job. He sees the life he wants and desperately needs, but he can only photograph it. While working here, his longing grin while he works the day has a very sad undertone that comes to the surface after he unsuccessfully enters into a relationship with a woman that works with him, and later when he fights one of his customers.

It certainly was no place for him to fight, but when he asks him if this picture was in fact, for the businessman’s wife, Freddie couldn’t control himself. His repression of anger, jealousy, and impotence burst out and ends into an unnecessary fight for him, but a very important one for the writer to establish this character’s motives.

As expected, things don’t work out for him. For a reason known only by himself, his girlfriend can’t feel the void he feels deep in his heart. Maybe he entered this relationship hoping that this void would seal by the mere fact of having someone to rely on and have sex with. But in the end, it didn’t work. He wasn’t able to turn this relationship around and making it something more than just plainly superficial.

The clues as to why this woman couldn’t fill the void come as later memories from Freddie, as he remembers the time where he was in love with a young girl who loved him back but was lost to him since Freddie got consumed by his own demons. The same demons that were created by the tragic early loss of his father and his psychotic mother. This young girl was the actual girl that got away, because of Freddie’s fault. He came back too late; 10 years too late.

Filling the void is no easy task, especially for Freddie. We continue to watch him escape his reality until he stumbles upon Lancaster and Peggy Dodd (Phillip Seymour Hoffman & Amy Adams) after infiltrating himself into their yacht during one of his escapes.

After the first encounter between Lancaster and Freddie, it seems that the void needed to fill was, in fact, one of a father-like-figure, rather than a loving wife. Lancaster’s almost hypnotic means to lead a conversation completely immerses Freddie. He finally appears to have found his purpose, since a new complete family full of brothers, sisters, mothers and a father, has welcomed him to a very open, but rigid family construct.

Of course, there’s drama and not everyone accepts Freddie as one of the family, like Peggy or Clark, the first who is, in fact, more subtly powerful than one may notice at first glance. She is the puppeteer behind Lancaster and is most likely the reason why Freddie’s time with the family comes full circle by the third act of the film, enabling him to finally try and start a family of his own.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, the Lancaster’s family dynamics are not the main reason they become so attractive to be with for the weak souls. There’s something far more dangerous behind themselves which is in fact, the power of cults and their influence towards people.

The Power of Cults

Many films have portrayed realistically the dangerousness of cults. How they manage to manipulate, control and force upon themselves to bend the will of their followers. The Master aims to show this quite differently. Rather than being a warning tale behind the destruction that cults can incite, which is mostly shown in other thrillers or horror films (like Midsommar, from which we’ll talk in the conclusion), The Master aims to display their power and influence over the fragility of a man who doesn’t want to escape the cult.

Don’t get me wrong, The Master doesn’t aim to promote cults, not one bit. Rather it shows how immersive and attractive they can be for lost souls. For people that have inner demons or that are simply confused about what life wants from them.

Lancaster Dodd’s cult appears to be inspired by the Church of Scientology, but Anderson’s take realigns itself to serve the purpose of the movie’s theme and becomes attractive to conveniently attack the demons of the protagonist. “The Cause” identifies itself as a healing family. One that uses hypnotic therapy to resolve psychic trauma forged in its subjects’ past experiences with their parents or others, or even during past lives. Lancaster describes this struggle as a “battle that’s trillion years in the making”.

This fit perfectly Freddie’s inner needs. He checks the boxes for past parental trauma and veteran’s PTSD from his time as a marine. These create a symbiotic relationship between Freddie and Lancaster and his ideology. Freddie clings to the group’s ideology like a parasite because Lancaster was the first person to actually break his barriers and allow him to become part of something after the military tried within his psychological tests.

This powerful feeling inside Freddie staggers one of cult’s and groups’ most typical sin. One were belonging to a group and defending the cause becomes more important than the individual. When the ideology surpasses reason, conflict arises and opens the possibility for totalitarian behavior. A behavior that doesn’t need to be concealed within political walls, and can be present in cults and religious, ideological, societal and demographical groups.

Theme as a Cautionary Tale

There’s no denying that when a film explores cult behavior, it is explored either as a cautionary tale to explore the lengths of how the group can change an individual (The Master or Ari Aster’s Midsommar) or as a setting from which the protagonist is desperately in need to escape (Florian Gallenberger’s Colonia, 2015).

Thematically speaking and while talking about the protagonist’s needs, Midsommar can compare itself with The Master (Skip this paragraph if you haven’t seen Midsommar). In Midsommar, Dani is a girl who has suffered a great deal of family trauma after her sister murdered their parents before committing suicide. As Freddie, Dani remains with a void so desperate and in need of familiar comfort. She stumbles upon a Swedish cult were everyone is one big family that also thinks and feels everything at unison, as if they’re some sort of the same extended individual. Her vulnerability caused by her void for a family causes her to become trapped in the cult and subject herself to the cult’s ways as their May Queen.

Midsommar is only one of the many examples that explore this behavior. Seeing this theme recurring in other films and The Master becomes a sign of a cautionary tale about the power of cults and their manipulative prowess. Vulnerable people that have some sort of desperate need deep within themselves are those who are often portrayed as the victims of these groups. Although Freddie doesn’t actually become a victim of Lancaster, his erratic, animalistic behavior is enhanced by the cult, allowing him to harm whoever presents himself as a threat to “The Cause” and allow his vices to intensify.

In the end, mainly thanks to Lancaster and his more soft way of herding his followers, Freddie is left to roam free again. His Master has set him free, and Freddie goes full circle to the same place he was at the beginning of the film. He’ll try and find the family he is still in need of and fill the void that the cult could only momentary suffice.