Daniel Day-Lewis DEFINITELY trumps Adam Sandler

Rating: 9/10 (17 April 2008)

This one is haunting me big time. Magnolia had me convinced long ago that Anderson was a showboating poser, but now I'm going to have to take a second look because this film takes the horror-farce high wire of Punch Drunk Love and runs it through an astonishing Daniel Day-Lewis, with exactly the uptick you'd expect. For two hours it looks like the only thing funny about this literalist travesty of American Dream individualism is going to be his unerring John Huston imitation; but as the third act rounds the bend, the appalling things that Day-Lewis is party to become increasingly tinged with existential ludicrousness. And his predilection for avoiding big, substantive struggles by only picking on the biggest weakling available at any given moment leads abruptly to a climax that is equal parts wrenching, horrifying, jaw-dropping and laugh-out-loud hysterical. I've never seen anything like it, and it makes me question my reactions to everything that came before - it DEMANDS to be watched again. This is what bravura means to me, not raining frogs. You pity the rest of the cast for having to share the screen with Day-Lewis, but somehow everyone manages to keep the sense of ensemble: forget the Oscars - Paul Dano deserves a purple heart!