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.
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