While I do not put much stock in the Oscars, I do make an effort most years to see the various Best Picture nominees while I can. That said, for a period it did seem as if there was always one that, for one reason or another, I couldn’t quite get around to. For 2017, that movie was Phantom Thread. The trailers didn’t really excite me much, but I did try to see everything, and that didn’t mean I wouldn’t like it. Regardless, I went to the local AMC on a day when it briefly played there, but there were some issues and the movie was either sold out, canceled, or both before I could even get myself a ticket. As a result, that was the nominee I failed to see that year.
I finally caught up to this one recently.
It’s 1954 in London, and dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) makes clothes for the rich, the royal, and the powerful. He’s a bit haunted by the death of his mother, but he is mostly a very quiet man who is focused on his work at all times. His only real confidant seems to be his sister Cyril (Leslie Manville) who runs the business end of things for her brother. One day he goes out for a meal and ends up asking the young waitress Alma (Vicky Krieps) out to dinner. The two seem to hit it off, but that may largely be due to the fact that Reynolds sees Vicky as some kind of perfect muse. She does move into his house and helps out, but Reynolds is very set in his ways and Cyril would prefer nothing distract her brother away from his work. Vicky would like to figure out how she even fits into Reynolds’s life, and Reynolds isn’t really sure why he brought her back in the first place. Is it love? Or something else? And can these two not only figure out what it is but also make it work?
Essentially, this is a movie about two people trying to find if not love then at least some sense of companionship. Vicky has very traditional needs: she wants to take care of Reynolds and help him, but also to sometimes have fun. She can be spontaneous and try to do things for Reynolds, but he often isn’t interested if he isn’t outright insulted. Reynolds for his part isn’t even sure what he wants. He is totally absorbed by his work, and that’s about it. Anything that gets between himself and his work is just a problem, and he has a very particular way of doing everything where even buttering toast during breakfast can be a major distraction. And yet, there’s a loneliness to both. If anything, Reynolds is just much more clumsy about expressing or even realizing that.
This is supposed to be Daniel Day-Lewis’s last movie before his retirement. Given how picky he could be about taking on any movie role, it’s understandable that he could say he wouldn’t be making any more and mean it. Heck, I could honestly claim not to really know what he looked like for a period despite seeing his face in many different movies. However, this is the sort of role that would be good for him to go out on. It’s not one that spells everything out, allowing him to reveal details about his character just through mannerisms and posture. Since the rest of the cast are not exactly huge names, it does seem to be something of a showcase for Day-Lewis, and given the quiet, introverted nature of the character, it’s a good way to go out with something that’s smaller than some huge, big showstopper (like if his last movie had been, say, Lincoln).
As for writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson, I have to say, I used to feel somewhat intimidated by the man’s work for some reason and largely avoided it. In the past year, I’ve seen his Punch Drunk Love, Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and Inherent Vice, and while none of these are exactly popcorn fare, they were all rather worth the look I gave them, so I am very glad I continued to see more of what he can do. Each of those movies were different in their general style and presentation, but for Phantom Thread, we may have the most intimate as it really is just a solid character study of two people trying to keep a relationship of some kind going, especially since neither seems to know how to get what they want from the other. That’s the sort of thing I can get behind. Quite frankly, the pandemic has been very good for exposing me to the work of directors I might have been a little too spooked to try before, but now that I have seen a number of them, I am feeling a lot better about continuing to seek out more of the sort of thing I was too worried I wouldn’t “get” before.
Grade: A-
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