While I admire P.T. Anderson's attempt at an epic story in this vast canvas of early oil drilling and one man's greed, the film fails to entirely convince

Rating: 6/10 (18 April 2017)

Released in 2007, THERE WILL BE BLOOD is Paul Thomas Anderson's vision of an oilman driven by greed. The film opens with a long introduction without spoken dialog: in 1898 prospector Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is digging somewhere in the California desert. An accident kills one of Daniel's fellows, and he adopts the dead man's orphaned son. Ten years later, Plainview has a number of successful oil wells going, bringing in thousands of dollars a week, and he generally wins new rights to drill by presenting himself as a decent, family man. "I work with my son here," he says, gesturing at the now older boy (played by Dillon Freasier) who has been named H.W.
As the film settles into its plot, Daniel and H.W. get the rights to drill one huge new oil field by flattering and tricking the people who own the land over it. Daniel is opposed, however, by the young charismatic preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), who insists that the oil drilling is unwelcome unless it brings donations and new members to his church. Gradually we see Daniel's greed, attempting to satisfy this rural congregation but really just obsessed with extending his rights over the land.
So greedy is Daniel that family life really means nothing to him: after H.W. is caught near an oil well explosion and becomes deaf, Daniel essentially abandons him, sending him off to a school in San Francisco. Eventually this greed both exalts Daniel to massive wealth and ruins him. Though loosely adapted from Upton Sinclar's novel OIL!, it is hard to see this film as a general critique of capitalist excess when Plainview is the only clearly warped person here. The viewer meets several other people involved in the oil industry in the film, and they seem to be ordinary, decent people. Instead of vaster social themes, P.T. Anderson is content to explore one man's psyche.
THERE WILL BE BLOOD drew critical acclaim, but I was left with mixed feelings. Definitely, English actor Daniel Day-Lewis presents one of the great method-acting performances of all time, utterly convincing as an obsessed California prospector of over a century ago. The production values are excellent and really recreate the world of early oil drilling with its primitive technology (and proneness to accidents). I also admire Anderson's attempt to tell an epic story, and I appreciate that this director doesn't mind letting the running time extend as far as he needs to tell the story.
However, the film is easier to admire than to love. Its feels to me flawed in many ways. The last scene, one of great theatricality and violence, doesn't seem adequately set up by the preceding moments. Secondly, Jonny Greenwood's soundtrack, which draws on avant-garde classical music, is too showy. I'm not bothered by modernism, and indeed I regularly listen to composers to whom Greenwood is often compared and called more audience-friendly. But I found that the soundtrack draws excessive attention to itself instead of smoothly matching the action.
Thus, I would still recommend THERE WOULD BE BLOOD, but I don't think it is an undeniable classic, and its featuring on multiple "Best of the 2000s" lists just baffles me.