Joacquin Phoenix plays a seaman at the end of WWII. He's an alcoholic, mixing up killer cocktails from industrial fuels and medicines, as well as having a number of emotional and behavioral problems. JP is somewhat (justifiably?) typecast in these roles.
After finding himself out of the navy after the war's over, he gets and loses a series of jobs, only to stow away on a boat that's carrying Philip Seymour Hoffman's daughter and husband-to-be's wedding party.
Hoffman is The Master - the leader of a cult that uses hypnosis and other techniques to explore and control the minds of its devotees.
What then transpires is basically well-acted nothingness. Two hours of engaging, but eventually pointless tracing of the cult's travels and JP's naive and slavish following.
I say "pointless" because nothing is resolved, no life-changing is experienced, nothing and no-one is debunked.
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