There Will Be Boredom

Rating: 3/10 (15 February 2008)

After reading all the hype surrounding There Will Be Blood (Daniel-Day Lewis's Academy Award nominated performance, Paul Thomas Anderson's directing, the cinematography etc) I expected the pièce de résistance of 2007 cinema. However, it was actually more disappointing than American Gangster. Sure I may (and most probably have) missed the point of TWBB, but even if I did get it, I doubt I would have been any more entertained. It really was boring. The story, the characters, the setting, everything. Well, everything except Daniel Day-Lewis. His performance as conflicted small-time oil baron Daniel Plainview is exceptional. So is his mantastic moustache. If the whole film was stripped down to him offering profound monologues on various turn-of-the-century American Midwest sets, it would be acceptable. He really was the only factor maintaining my interest in the film, although he should still lose the Academy Award to Viggo Mortensen. However, if there was an award for hobbling duck walks, Day-Lewis would win by a mile.
One particularly irritating aspect of TWBB is the character Eli Sunday, played by Paul Dano. Yes, I realise he's supposed to be irritating; that does not make his screeching voice or perpetual presence any easier to accommodate. Though evidently supposed to be a focal point of TWBB, his very existence drags the already unpromising premise (Oil! Wow!) into insipid mess territory. I cheered (well I didn't, but I could have) every time something bad happened to him, which was not often enough. Another annoying character is Plainview's 'son', H.W, who we're supposed to feel sorry for, for some reason. Considering his total absence of character development and the way he magically ages about ten years near the end of the film, the only feeling he evokes is puzzlement and indifference. And they're pretty much the only people I can recall. Oh, except for Plainview's long lost 'brother', the human equivalent of a plank of wood with a moustache drawn on by a Biro which has been chewed on incessantly by a moron.
Other than Daniel Day-Lewis, the only positive aspect that can be taken from TWBB is the score composed by Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead. Paranoid and edgy, it fits the bleak atmosphere of the film perfectly. Actually, I would rather just listen to the score on its own. Although then it would remind me that I watched this in the first place. Great, everything is ruined.
So, don't bother watching this turgid shambles unless for some reason you derive some kind of sadomasochistic pleasure from boring yourself stupid. Instead, just download the soundtrack instead and listen to it free from lingering, unwanted vestiges of There Will Be Blood invading your thoughts. To amend a quote by Plainview, "That wasN'T one goddamn helluva show."