Director Paul Thomas Anderson with Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn

Or “One Damn’ Thing After Another” as I thought of it as I was bombarded with quickfire scenes and dialogue, leaving no time for reflection. I’m far too old for something so chaotic, crude and shouty! (But the car chase was absolutely brilliant.) The only times it slowed down, as far as I recall, was to spotlight the malevolence of the powerful white supremacist cell, and a slightly jarring (given the circumstances) genuflection to motherhood at the end. Had I not read years ago the Pynchon novel on which it is loosely based, I would have been floundering a bit.

It’s about a father searching for his daughter against a background of underground agents: revolutionary anti-capitalists, resistance groups on the side of the oppressed, and chilling white supremacists in positions of power that they don’t intend to give up. Once past the cartoonish aspects (e.g. Sean Penn channelling every Sellars character from Dr Strangelove), there is a punchy – if incoherent – resistance to the current Trumpian agenda and actions.

It’s left me with a desire to see The Battle of Algiers again and vague comparisons with a couple of old programmes about state power I’ve recently watched on BBC iPlayer. One is Edge of Darkness – father and daughter again – and the other is David Hare’s play, Absence of War. Unsurprising, both are far more to my taste – but what, more objectively, I note is the way in which atmosphere is built and complex ideas are presented through dialogue and explanation (some of it admittedly clunky) rather than hurling images, vibes and one-liners in the direction of the audience.