For those unfamiliar with the Paul Thomas Anderson film, The Master follows Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix), a Navy WWII veteran left with PTSD and no support system as he attempts to find a place to belong after the war. After several missteps, he discovers a cult community, The Cause (loosely based on Scientology), led by “Master” Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour Hoffman), and they develop an intense friendship that bears difficult consequences for them both.

Freddie serves as an endlessly fascinating case study in our often-thwarted attempts to build community—religious or otherwise. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen The Master and it only becomes more powerful each time. Viewed from a limiting perspective—or in the case of some of The Cause’s members, with a warped religious attitude—Freddie seems “beyond help,” as Peggy (Amy Adams), wife of The Master, proclaims. Zealously committed to their movement, she becomes intensely antagonistic toward any perceived threat or attack, and for her, Freddie comes to represent the potential downfall of her husband. This attitude is not entirely without basis: Freddie is at best crass and at worst, violent and otherwise out-of-control. His introduction to Lancaster centers on the discovery of one of Freddie’s makeshift “potions,” as Lancaster calls them—alcoholic beverages concocted from whatever materials (whether safe to drink to not) that Freddie can find at hand. His previous attempts to share drinks with people he might care about—other seamen, an almost-girlfriend, fellow itinerant workers—have not ended well for him, so Lancaster’s affirmation becomes a critical opportunity for communion as Freddie’s own personal crises are reaching a breaking point. The Eucharistic overtones of such a drinking scene—two of which bookend a wedding feast—do not require elaboration. When Freddie and Lancaster initiate this bond, they become part of each other.

This connection, like all human relationships, is fragile. Freddie’s motivations seem unclear in some ways, though it appears that his desire for community—to be part of a cause (if not necessarily The Cause) is genuine. Almost without fail, his attempts to help contribute lead to disaster. Rather than discourage Lancaster, however, it only further fuels his conviction that Freddie needs saving. At the same time, as the story evolves we become increasingly aware of the ways in which Master himself reflects many of Freddie’s flaws. For example, Lancaster frames Freddie’s fixation on sex and brute physicality as being “animal,” a repulsive characteristic that he must help him learn to control—but we come to learn that Lancaster struggles with similar proclivities. All of his efforts to remain superior end in rage-filled outbursts or other unnerving signs that his supposed “peace” is not as strong as he claims. Is this hypocrisy? Abuse of power? Or does it enable him better to empathize with Freddie? Is it all of them? I’m not sure there is supposed to be a singular answer, which is one of the many complexities in unraveling the “mysteries” of faith.

Such signs of brokenness in The Cause only increase as the movie progresses, though refreshingly, Anderson does not give excessive attention to these parts of the narrative. We have enough real-life models to understand the warning signs: this is a “church” that will not ultimately save its flock. However, the fact that Anderson seems less interested in this aspect of the story than in the relationship between Freddie and Master—and really, most interested in how Freddie experiences it—signals where our attention should be drawn. It is not a story about abstract institutions, universal religious creeds, or even blind faith, but about how such forces become manifest in individual lives, and how we respond to them.