Two and a Half Hours of Boring Non-Plot

Rating: 3/10 (25 March 2010)

In 2007, everybody was singing the praises of two movies, "Transformers" and "There Will Be Blood." I saw "Transformers" in theaters, and it was awful. I didn't see "There Will Be Blood" until early 2010, and, while it appeals to the human psyche on a much higher level than "Transformers," it's about as bad. In both cases I'm at a loss to understand why so many people fail to recognize poor film-making when they see it.
This is a two and a half hour movie where very little happens, and what does happen scarcely constitutes a plot. Instead of a story, it's a number of disconnected sequences. Any synopsis I write would seem more like a real story than what the movie actually tells, due to the inherent human trait of connecting and making sense of things, even when they're disparate and devoid of meaning.
You would have every reason go into this movie expecting greatness. After all, it's written, directed, and produced by P. T. Anderson, it stars Daniel Day-Lewis, and it won two Oscars. I don't know if I'd even blame you for thinking this review must be nonsense. But the whole is less than the sum of its parts, and the movie is a waste of time. A lot of time. It's the same length as a seven-part "Doctor Who" serial (not counting credits etc.). In fact, I think that's a good way to illustrate how poorly this film uses its time.
The first three and a half minutes of Part 1 are lengthy shots of the film's protagonist, Daniel Painview, digging an oil well, with no dialog, narration, or music. This was my first warning, but hey, not every movie can open with an exploding moon knocking a coffee cup off a table or planes dropping napalm while a Doors song plays. What follows is an illustration of how Daniel became an oil man and how his business operates now (the year 1911). Part 1 closes with a young man named Eli Sunday telling him about land where oil has been discovered.
We're a ways into Part 2 before the first inklings of a dramatic conflict appear. Near the end, Daniel buys up all the land in the area, except for part that's owned by an old man who he can't be bothered to meet with in person. Eli and others continue to have misgivings about him. We also learn that, while Daniel appears to be an honest, friendly family man, this is actually a façade. He's a shrewd businessman, and a skillful liar. Construction of the derrick is finally underway when Part 2 ends.
In Part 3 we learn that Eli is head of a local church. Daniel doesn't let him bless the well before drilling begins, which happens about halfway through Part 3 (notice the rate of progress here). Eli, the most sympathetic character so far, turns out to have all the makings of an "X-Files" guest star. He's insane. He has multiple personality disorder. He is sometimes Eli, and sometimes his twin brother Paul. He believes he's a faith healer and an exorcist. His congregation think he's the real deal. The cliffhanger that ends Part 3 would be an eruption of natural gas at the oil well.
What passes of a plot in this movie gets underway in Part 4. The disaster destroys the derrick and leaves Daniel's son, H. W., permanently deaf. He's also portrayed as mentally ill in Part 4, though this thread is dropped later. We jump forward to where Daniel has three working oil wells and is coming unhinged. He and Eli have the inevitable falling-out. Daniel meets a con man claiming to be his long-lost half-brother.
Daniel ships H. W. off to some kind of care home at the beginning of Part 5. He's very rich now, and continues to act unhinged, though he's mainly portrayed as consciously evil rather than mentally ill. Part 5 concludes with him uncovering and killing the con man.
In Part 6, Daniel gets away with the murder, buys the land of the old man he didn't meet with earlier, and builds an oil pipeline through it. The condition is that he has to become a member of the old man's church, which happens to be the one Crazy Eli leads. They shame Daniel into taking back his son. A brief montage shows H. W. growing up rather normally and getting married.
Part 7 consists of two scenes set in 1927. That's right, two scenes take up more than twenty minutes. In the first one, Daniel disowns his son, who has grown up to believe in the values that Daniel only pretended to believe in. In the other, Eli asks for Daniel to help his church (including paying money he's owed for sixteen years). Daniel humiliates and murders him.
And that's it. These few events, lacking any real rising action, falling action, overarching conflict, or resolution, take up two and a half hours. Contrast that to what happens in a seven-part "Doctor Who" serial, or seven episodes of "Escaflowne," or three and a half episodes of "24," or two and a half hours of any other work of dramatic storytelling that's worth the time it takes to watch it.
Before I finish, I have to say this movie could be worse. It's directed by somebody who really knows how to put a shot together. There's nothing wrong with the cast, and some of them really sell their characters (especially Paul Dano as Eli Sunday). The writing is mostly believable and self-consistent. It's just directionless, pointless, and dramatized at a testudineous pace. I should have spent the time watching a seven-part "Doctor Who" serial, because they're all better than "There Will be Blood." Even the one where mad scientists force Martians in British spacesuits to rob banks.