A rich, complex ode to the blackness of the human heart

Rating: 10/10 (26 January 2008)

In There Will Be Blood, Director Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights, Magnolia) lays out an expansive ode to greed, avarice, and the darkness of the human heart.
Daniel Day-Lewis further cements his credentials as arguably the pre-eminent actor of this generation with his performance as the complexly evil oil baron Daniel Plainview.
In typical auteur fashion, Anderson has crafted a movie that opens the door wide to rampant speculation and discussion about character motives and interpretations. As a critic it left me practically wishing I had a discussion group to adjourn to after the screening so I could banter about some of the ideas and impressions it left with me.
In epic, sweeping fashion, the movie charts Plainview's progression from early silver prospector to up-and-coming oil tycoon to full-blown petroleum magnate, and the accompanying shedding of all that is human in Plainview's soul Â– if ever there was any good hidden in there to begin with.
Photographed in breathtaking panoramas and intimate close-ups, Anderson proves he can deftly tell a story with either sharply penned dialog, or long complex scenes where no word is uttered.
The crucible of the story begins to unfold when the emerging oil baron is approached by Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) who, for a price, offers Plainview a tip regarding the untapped oil on his family's homestead. Plainview follows up and ends up brokering a deal for the Sunday farm with Paul's "brother" Eli, himself a tinderbox of egotistical avarice who is enticed by the lure of oil money as a way to lay the foundation for his own warped and twisted religious church-building ambitions. In a move that I found ripe for debate, Anderson leaves open the possibility that Paul and Eli, both played by Dano, may in fact be one person beset by a split personality disorder; something which, if true, would only lend to the dark complexity of the film. I found this aspect most intriguing and worthy, in and of itself, of repeat viewing.
Being a man who openly professes to seeing no good in anyone, Plainview immediately sees Eli as an obstacle on his path to riches, with each becoming the other's nemesis.
In fact, the only person to whom Plainview shows any trust, love or compassion, is his adopted son H.W. (Dillon Freasier) whom he at times relies upon as a prop to affirm himself as a good old-fashioned family man when negotiating with homesteaders to swindle them out of their land. But even this aspect of Plainview's personality is layered with rich complexity. Throughout much of the movie Plainview appears to show unquestionable affection for his son, yet when an accident robs the child of his hearing, which in turn elicits emotionally traumatic behavior from the boy, Plainview finds himself incapable or unwilling to deal with the child and has him sent away.
Such are the richness of details in Anderson's screenplay, itself based loosely upon Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel "Oil". Plainview's distrust and compulsive adversarial relationship with all who cross his path culminate in a cacophony of madness during two final encounters in his twilight years with his adult son, and the re-emergent Eli Sunday, during which Anderson draws a parallel between Plainview and the Antichrist, culminating with Plainview's dark, Christ-like final line "I'm finished".
Such is the fate of the human soul when all that is good is sublimated and sacrificed like so much lamb's blood at the altar of greed and avarice.