There Will Be Exhaustion...but the good kind

Rating: 10/10 (19 February 2008)

I went to the cinema fully prepared, no drinks ( so I wouldn't have to interrupt the film with a toilet break ) and excited. I knew what I was expecting. I did not expect violence, sex or drugs, otherwise known as what people expect these days from a movie. I expected a soaring and haunting score, powerful cinematography, exceptional direction and above all the performance of a lifetime from one Mr Daniel Day-Lewis...and My God did it deliver. I knew what was coming and I was left breathless and exhausted, an experience unchallenged by any movie I have seen before and I am likely to see for a long while. Granted one of my friends fell asleep, but don't let that dissuade you. I loved every moment, and while at nearly three hours it did stretch others to the limit, I was absorbed and involved and overcome with its majesty from its silent and lonely beginnings to its beautiful and monstrous crescendo. Mr Day-Lewis-unarguably the most accomplished and one of the greatest actors of all time- is the heart and soul of the movie, you cannot take your eyes off him...there are no words to describe how masterful he is, lets put it this way, he makes Johnny Depp look like the spice girls for acting ability...truly astonishing. Paul Dano is eery and quietly fantastic as the Preacher, a true profiteer of the worst kind of fraudulence; that of the soul. He cannot match Day-Lewis for performance, but come on, who could? H.W Plainview is similarly wonderful, subtle and emotive, he could teach young acting veterans such as Daniel Radcliffe a thing or two. The story is more Spartacus than Gladiator, and people of taste will appreciate that this is to the film's benefit rather than demise. It will never be a box office smash, and if it was I would probably love it a little less. It is subtle but no less deadly. It is phenomenal. You begin, your breathe caught in your throat, the first sonorous beat sounds and your heart pounds. The first word is spoken and you are hooked. The credits roll and you feel drained, exhausted and broken...but in the most spectacular and beautiful ways imaginable. It is so worth it. "Do you take There Will Be Blood into your soul?" Yes, yes I do.