THE MASTER

CULT FILM

Is this guru playing a dangerous game?

Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman, above right with Amy Adams) is, he claims, ‘a writer, a doctor, a nuclear physicist and a theoretical philosopher’. He is also the inventor of a cult called The Cause, seemingly not a million miles away from Scientology, which draws in Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), a traumatised WW2 vet. Is Dodd making all this stuff up as he goes along? Does he really believe it? Some critics found director Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2012 film – his first after There Will Be Blood – profound, some found it pretentious. Some just found it baffling. Netflix, from Thursday