"The Master:" Why it is now the fourth film I have walked out of in the cinema

When I heard The Master was going to be playing at the theater I frequent almost every week, I was less than excited. Sure I heard about it a lot because of Paul Thomas Anderson and it being Joaquin Phoenix's (I refer to him as "Joaq Phoen" for personal enjoyment, but I digress) return to acting after his music career turned out to be an elaborate hoax. I was intrigued, but not impatient. I felt I could wait until it came to DVD in early 2013.

Well, last week, I began to ponder thoroughly about seeing The Master, what with the 85% rating on the Tomatometer and the overwhelmingly positive reception on other sites like Mubi with some users crediting it as "one of cinema's best films." I made a decision early in the week to see it. I went from rather nonchalant feelings about the film to anticipation. I thought I really couldn't miss this picture.

I caught the earliest showing on a Saturday, roughly 11:55am (which is late by my standards, considering I'm accustomed to showings around 10:15am) and began what I hoped to be an eventful odyssey of epic proportions. What happened? It resulted in me walking out after about an hour and fifteen minutes of it.

Now this is where I'd begin to say something like "this is an appalling work of cinematic trash. A deplorable exercise in tedious, ungodly, inexcusable pacing..." But I'm not going to. I found the film to be too far out of reach for me. Rarely have I felt so lost, so confused, or so isolated from a film (the last instance I can think of was Film Socialisme, but we need not go there again, do we?). The whole experience felt somewhat robotic, a little unclear, and very muddled under the weight of its own thoughts. Not pretentious, per say, just sort of lost in a sea of its own ideas - which seemed thought-provoking but I dunno.

I will say that the cinematography was very vibrant and Joaq Phoen's performance was borderline career-making, but what does it all mean when it exists in a film that doesn't seem to be able to thoroughly lay out its ideas and go from there? It's a frustrating scenario at the viewer's expense. I'm definitely in the minority here, I'm well aware, but I do not hesitate to admit when I'm not comprehending something or feeling very disconnected - even if it would mean slaughtering a film's 100% on the Tomatometer.

I am making a pact, with you, the reader, as my witness; if Paul Thomas Anderson's The Master wins any of the five major awards at 2013's Academy Award, whether it be Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, or Best Original Screenplay, or even multiple awards, I will make an earnest attempt to sit through the entire film and publish a review (no review will be published after this viewing, obviously). If it fails to win any of those five awards, I may rewatch it, but I will make no priority of it. That's my pact. I really do want to give this film another chance, but I want to make sure that I am giving it a chance that it deserves and if it wins some Oscars, I can prove that it was truly a remarkably noteworthy, important film and not just a passing phase that many will call "brilliant" and "cinema's best" but one that will be treasured.

NOTE: In case you were wondering, the other three were The Master of Disguise in 2002, Napoleon Dynamite in 2004 (to this day, I have not finished it in two other sittings), and Drag Me To Hell in 2009.