He drinks it up, as we the viewers also digest this picture.

Rating: 10/10 (14 February 2009)

There Will Be Blood is adapted by Paul Thomas Anderson from the novel "Oil", written by Upton Sinclair. It charts the rise to power of Daniel Plainview, an oil prospector without one seemingly redemptive characteristic, this is a man who takes and uses an adoptive son purely as a front for luring sympathy from prospective sellers, the facade of a caring family man never more so ruthlessly exploited as it is by Plainview. Upon learning {at a price} that there is oil abundant land in California going cheap, Plainview and H.W. {his ahem, son}, set off there and begin manipulating the land owners to meet Plainview's means. But although the operation there is thriving, Plainview meets resistance per se, in the form of local preacher Eli Sunday, greed and religion appearing to define both mens destinies.
So many writings and analytical dissections have been formed about this mighty epic from 2007, and really it's not my want to even begin agreeing or disagreeing about the various translations of the piece. For what it's worth, I don't see anything more than a fable about isolation thru greed, and the blending of capitalism with religious fervour. What I do know is that watching There Will Be Blood feels like a reason to love cinema, regardless of Paul Thomas Anderson's motives that bubble beneath the surface, it's a film of extraordinary greatness. It's leading man, Daniel Day Lewis, turns in one of his customary brilliant performances, enticing audience confusion as to if Plainview is a genius or a sociopath bastard? Either way you call it, Day Lewis has given us one of the modern cinema's truest scary monsters. Paul Dano as Eli gives the film its other central performance, and in view of D D Lewis's barn storming performance, it's with much credit that Dano leaves an indelible mark come the final credits.
Tho nominated for eight academy awards, the only other win outside of Day Lewis's for best actor {really it was a given that he would win}, went to Robert Elswit for his stunning cinematography, sparse dusty lands are perfectly framed with truncation excellently arriving in the form of oil drills and fire laden towers. There Will Be Blood is a film that demands you return to it for further viewings, each subsequent visit bringing about a little more than a fabulous leading man performance. It's just like many prescription pain killers, if you give it time then it most definitely works, and to me as a lover of cinema, this picture is part of being the best medicine of recent times. 10/10