In 1950, a drunk named Freddie Quell meets a writer named Lancaster Dodd who is starting some kind of religion. The plot of writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson's latest masterpiece sounds simple enough, but the structure of this story is very unusual, because this is Freddy's story and not Dodd's. Dodd's story would be more logical and orderly, probably with an emphasis on names, dates, facts, and figures. No, this is Freddy's story. So the timeline is hazy. You only hear most characters names once or maybe twice. We hear Freddy's name over and over again but the other characters are known mostly by their place in the hierarchy. There is no conventional three act structure to this story. Lots of scenes moving this way and that, from one place to another just like Freddy. From one scene to the next he might be across the country or across the world.
