Saturday, April 28, 2018

PHANTOM THREAD (2017) *** ½


Paul Thomas Anderson reteamed with his There Will Be Blood star Daniel Day-Lewis for this melancholy character study of a compulsive fashion designer in the ‘50s.  This is probably Anderson’s most mannered and mature film yet, but it has a mean streak a mile wide that makes it crackle like some of his best work.  Day-Lewis delivers one of his all-time best performances, and if he is serious about retiring, he chose the perfect note to go out on.

Reynolds Woodcock (Day-Lewis) is thoroughly stuck in his ways.  When he meets a feisty waitress named Alma (Vicky Krieps), he is immediately taken with her and she quickly becomes his latest muse.  She soon learns that she must contend with Woodcock’s overbearing sister (Leslie Manville) for his affections.

The relationship between Woodcock and Alma keeps revealing new, weirder and weirder layers as the film goes along.  I particularly loved the early scene where he fits her for a dress.  She gazes at him longingly as he rattles off her measurements to his sister.  Alma is looking to him for affection and approval while Woodcock coldly reduces her to a series of numbers.  The scenes where she disrupts his precious routine leads to some hilarious banter that ranks right up there with some of Anderson’s finest dialogue.  

Phantom Thread moves at a methodical pace and is often cold and callus, but it’s filled with so much brittle humor and scathing bon mots that it never feels slow.  Whether Woodcock is belittling Alma for making “entirely too much movement” at the breakfast table or being forced to eat her awful asparagus (“Are you a special agent sent here to ruin my evening and possibly my entire life?”), their tense encounters are simultaneously gut-wrenching and hilarious.  While the film stops short of being a stone-cold classic (mostly due to its insistence to keep the audience at arm’s length the entire time), the performances, period costumes, and sizzling dialogue make it highly recommended.

No comments:

Post a Comment