Best PTA movie featuring DDL's best performance, need I say more?

Rating: 10/10 (1 July 2020)

There will be blood is widely regarded as an all time classic and in my humble opinion it is. It's a story about greed, faith, family(or lack of),love,religion, loneliness, capitalism and its devastating effects. The movie sort of acts as a critique on capitalism and the means men will go in order to make money.
The story is mostly about two men, Daniel Plainview(Daniel Day Lewis) and Eli Sunday(Paul Dano) and the hatred filled relationship between them. They are two sides of the same coin and both of them know it. Daniel is an oil man who is extremely greedy and has lust for power and money and is prepared to go to any lengths to fulfill his wants and all of this is established in one of the greatest openings of all time with barely a word spoken. He adopts the small son of his worker that had recently died in an oil drilling accident. The scene between the baby and Daniel is also a wonderful scene and one of my favorite shots as the baby, white as snow dressed in white as well is cast by the shadow of Daniel, dressed in black and covered with oil and blood. Later Daniel mixes alcohol in the child's drink signifying the mixing of impurity in the innocent child. He adopts not of pity but because he believes people will trust him more if he has a family. He is an extremely charismatic individual who uses his power of speech to win over people. But he is also an atheist and as he says in the film, finds flaws in every person he meets. He later meets his apparent brother who has come looking for him and immediately trusts him and opens his emotional side that we had not seen previously. He he trusts him because of the blood relation or as he puts it "There is a little of me in you". That scene between the two of them is a wonderful insight into Daniel's inner soul and the cause of the greed.
On the other hand there is Eli who is a preacher of the church and he does money using religion and basically by swindling others. Daniel hates this. Here is man who is openly swindling the people with bull**** but they believe him. Eli is an opposite of Daniel in that he doesn't work hard at all. This infuriates Daniel. There is always the animosity between them that is the driving force of the movie. They both are the products of capitalism, the earn money at any cost attitude. Daniel considers him his competition and he tries to break him in any ways that he can finally ending in the wonderful finale. Another thing that I loves was the parallels in the baptisms of Daniel and later Eli. You should watch out for it. Also the scenes where Daniel discovers oil is so well directed that when he digs on and on it seems he is piercing Mother Earth and blood is gushing out, indicating another parallel between the two as both are using something beautiful and good to their own selfish needs.
This is about the themes of the movie without giving away the spoilers. Coming to the technical aspects, the movie is gorgeously shot and every frame is a painting. The screenplay is one of the best ever and the music by Greenwood sets the mood of the movie throughout. The biggest positive is the performances of the entire cast especially Daniel Day Lewis who brings to life one of the greatest characters ever written and makes it to one of the greatest performances of all time. Paul Dano is also excellent as both Paul and Eli Sunday. PTA is excellent as usual. The long takes were really brilliant as the editing was top notch and increased the tension of the movie.
My final advice is try to see the movie at least twice as the characters are too deep and complex. The first time I watched it I was underwhelmed as the themes went over my head and more importantly I couldn't understand the two main characters. But after watching it 3 times, I have come around to appreciate it more and now it sits firmly on top of my favorite movies of this century so far. A must watch!!