After five aching years, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson finally returns to the cineplex with There Will Be Blood, one of the most hyped movies of the year. And, believe it or not, it deserves all the buzz it’s getting, if not more. Read on for details.
There Will Be Blood
4 & 1/2 Stars
If Paul Thomas Anderson has spent the his first films partying (Boogie Nights), getting together with a dozen different cronies (Magnolia) and living life to the fullest (Punch-Drunk Love), then his newest film, There Will Be Blood, is his sojourn into the dead desert. With only one main character and a seeming abandonment of any color or other cinematic enrichment that doesn’t match the dead beige of sun-cooked soil, he gives himself the task of proving that he can make a film without a trace of the extravagance he has so often used. Does it work?
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Fuck yes it works. About a faithless, greedy oil baron who never finds out that morality is the most essential attribute to living happily, it might be the best movie of the year. This one is so good, it’s difficult to figure out where to start lathering the movie with complements.
Well, since we’re already on the topic, let’s start with Anderson. His comfort with the material is staggering – he can let a scene with nothing but a desert landscape with one man offering another some goat’s milk just as interesting as 98% of all the scenes in this year’s movies. It’s sort of amazing. Or how about the camera work? Anderson’s long time DP Robert Elswit is back on duty here, and can do wonders with nothing more than a broad spectrum of brown. And in one of those rare scenes that doesn’t take place in the California desert, when Elswit given a chance to work with a dull stain of pink, he just may nab the greatest single shot in any film this year. And it’s just of a guy sitting in a room.
Anderson goes out on a limb by giving the original music responsibility to Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead fame, in what I believe is the director’s first film with a traditional score. Plenty will have problems with Greenwood’s eccentric music jumping and hopping about forebodingly; but it’s still tense and, well, cool enough to justify itself. Come on, how does the guitarist behind Radiohead, a guy who has written actual orchestras, do wrong?
But perhaps the real star of the film – or at least the most obvious one – is Daniel Day-Lewis. It shouldn’t come as that big of a surprise to find that the guy plays a great anti-hero in the movie, but it’s damn tricky to quantify just how good he is in this role. Playing an utterly amoral oil tycoon (coincidentally also named Daniel) at the turn of the last century, his inability and lack of desire to be a decent man are what dooms and redeems him. Day-Lewis defines the the very edge between acting and over-acting, but stays on the better side as he slowly winds up Daniel’s insanity to the point that you don’t know what this guy is going to do next, and you’re damn glad you won’t ever have to find out first hand. In a year full of haunting bad guys like No Country For Old Men‘s Anton Chigurh and The King of Kong‘s Billy Mitchell, Daniel could be the best. And, though certainly overshadowed, the supporting cast is certainly worthy, like Paul Dano as the equally immoral, obsessed minister and Dillon Freasier as Daniel’s young adopted son.
Day-Lewis’ ability to put his character on the verge of madness, combined with Anderson’s obsessive style of clean filmmaking go together in this one like a good film and an Oscar. And, look what I brought up, if this movie doesn’t grab a nomination or seven, then there will be no justice.