great but not awesome

Rating: Null/10 (7 November 2007)

It seems one should state where they stand on previous Paul Thomas Anderson films, so let me preface this by saying I enjoyed "Boogie Nights," walked out of "Magnolia" after about thirty minutes, and thought "Punch Drunk Love" was stylistically his most consistent, least flawed movie. This film is very loosely based on Upton Sinclair's novel "Oil!" I like the broad liberal social criticism of Sinclair's writing and was hoping for a more faithful adaptation, but those expecting to find that political dimension in "There Will Be Blood" will be disappointed. The film strips the story down to a rather narrow character study of a greedy power-mad oil man named Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, who seems to be channeling John Huston's performance as Noah Cross in "Chinatown." Day-Lewis is, as always, flawless and a joy to watch. The last part of the movie, with Plainview living rich, mad and alone in his mansion, invites a comparison to "Citizen Kane," but unlike Kane, Plainview is a much more static, one dimensional character who hasn't changed much over the course of the film, except to get even meaner and more misanthropic. His foil throughout the film is Eli Sunday, a young evangelist played by Paul Dano, who struck me as not having quite enough gravitas for the role, but then again the relationship between Plainview and Sunday is increasingly played for laughs as the movie draws to an end, spinning toward a final scene that ends the film on a note of farcical Grand Guignol that represents an abrupt shift of tone from the austere beginning and middle of the film and threatens to thematically undermine what has preceded it, leaving the viewer to wonder about the ultimate meaning of the film's portrayal of Plainview. The picture is beautifully shot with gorgeous cinematography, and the musical score is effective although it's mixed painfully too loud into the soundtrack. A masterfully executed film, but one that in the end simply revels in its depiction of an entertaining psychopath without taking advantage of the broader social and political context inherent in the source material of the story, which could have elevated it to the status of a more meaningful work of art.