Rigoletto's librettist, Francesco Maria Piave, replaced the king with the Duke of Mantua, who is just as morally bankrupt as the original. The opera premiered in 1851 in Venice and has been a popular production to roll out with both name recognition and one of those golden tunes that almost everybody has heard: La donna e mobile, which becomes haunting in the context of the actual plot.
But One Battle After Another could also be fairly described as a sweet movie about a father coming to terms with his teenage daughter having a phone - which is one example of how Anderson's destabilizing approach to big themes can turn poignant and revelatory. "Sweeping" would normally be a way to characterize a nearly three-hour-long, multigeneration saga like this, but Anderson works in a more rough-hewn, compassionate register that burrows strangely but acutely into the American psyche.