DVD & Blu-ray review: The Master (15)

Paul Thomas Anderson DVD/Blu-ray (144mins)

Joaquin Phoenix (left) and Amy Adams in The Master

Joaquin Phoenix (above with Amy Adams) captivates as Freddie Quell, a former Naval officer who emerges from the Second World War as damaged and alien as Vietnam vet Travis Bickle.

Quell, unable to hold down a job due to his drunkenness and mental instability, stumbles one night aboard a yacht commandeered by Philip Seymour Hoffman's genial cult leader, the Master.

The horny, violent Quell becomes the Master's self-appointed henchman, and the ambiguous relationship between these two vastly different men grips in this intelligent psychodrama.