Phantom Thread...Elongated Elegance in the Room
By ice rivers
- 1155 reads
Part Pygmallion, Part Last Tango in Paris, Mix in some Henry James along with a huge dose of ACTING and DIRECTING and we have arrived at the recipe for Phantom Thread. Thread is the ninth film from director Paul Thomas Anderson and perhaps the final film for actor Daniel Day Lewis.
The key word here is elegance: fastidious, obsessive compulsive, passive aggressive elegance. The main conflict here is between the OCD of Reynolds Woodcock (Lewis) and his paramour Alma (Vicki Krieps). Both characters are ironically named. The unspoken last surname of Alma is probably Mater. She serves as the recurring Mother figure to the ultra uptight and fastidious Woodcock.
Jonny Greenwood supplies a romantic, emphatic score which reminds us to look away from the over all creepiness of the plot.
Lewis resembles a cadaverous mixture of Michael Renny and Christopher Lee as he continually transitions from consumate artist to disassociative martinet with a few brilliant flashes of accessibility interrupting the storms of opposing shores.
Caught in the middle, between Alma and Reynolds is Cyril. Cyril ( Leslie Manville) is Reynold's partner as well as his sister. Her steely resolve protects what might pass as equilibrium in the twisted love story.
When I used to be a runner, I hated running 5 mile races when the miles were not clearly marked. I always lost track of where I was in the race...how near to the finish. Watching Phantom Thread is kinda like that. It's hard to figure out when the movie is going to end which makes it seem very slow. At least five people in the audience at our theater ran out of patience and walked out of the screening.
Another matter of significance in the compostion of the audience was the preponderance of females in the theater. Of the 60 people attending this showing, I only counted four males. I half-expected a wine tasting to break out.
Distracting as well, are the number of Day Lewis profiles on display within the film. Talk about shining the light on the star...when in doubt put Lewis in profile and turn up the music to swoon.
In the midst of all of this elongated elegance, a bit of raucous behavior appears during a New Year's Eve Party when an elephant actually appears in the room just before the pivotal face off between Woodcock and Alma. They meet and the camera lingers upon their profiles as some serious ACTING commences. The music swells. Nobody can look away except perhaps some of the audience.
Finally in one of the great 'got you" moments of all time, Lewis and Kreips provide an amazing, ultra dramatic "got chew" moment that takes forever even though the scenery remains somehow safe.
The movies final twist heads toward Munchausen land minus any sign of a wizard.
I'd go on but my wife is calling me down for a mushroom pizza.
If you're a fan of Day-Lewis this movie is a 10...if you're a fan of the director it gets an 8 for everybody else.....6 is about right.
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