audacious but uneven film

Rating: 7/10 (8 March 2008)

"There Will Be Blood" - Paul Thomas Anderson's ambitious adaptation of Upton Sinclair's 1927 novel, "Oil" - runs for a good fifteen minutes before a single word is ever spoken. Yet, that prolonged reticence is probably the least peculiar aspect of a movie that becomes progressively more bizarre the longer it goes on.
In the role that won him an Oscar, Daniel Day-Lewis - who, with his stentorian tones. sounds as if he's channeling John Huston for large portions of the film - plays Daniel Plainview, an ambitious oil man in turn-of-the-century California who, in his ruthless quest for money and success, finds he has no room left over in his heart for either God or his fellow man. Plainview's main antagonist is Eli Sunday, a fire-and-brimstone faith-healer who turns out to be every bit as opportunistic and empty-souled as the godless Plainview (and considerably more hypocritical).
With two such unsavory and unsympathetic lead characters, Anderson really didn't have much choice but to go for the abstract in his approach, turning Sinclair's tale into an exercise in art house style that is as liable to alienate "general audience" viewers as pull them in. Anderson is dealing with some mighty resonant themes here - greed, deception, abandonment, religion, filial relationships, Man's place in the universe - and he brings an appropriately "grand opera" sensibility to the film. He lets Day-Lewis swing for the fences in his performance, resulting in a mesmerizing admixture of over-the-top histrionics and soul-searing subtlety. Anderson has mounted the film in such a way as to make the visuals and the landscape as integral to the storyline as the characters - at times even more so, as the script frequently fails to sufficiently clarify the motives for why the characters do what they do. Their actions often feel so arbitrary and inexplicable that we begin to wonder if crucial portions of the film might not have actually ended up on the cutting-room floor. This is particularly the case in the later stretches of the movie as Plainview descends ever more into paranoia and madness.
Paul Dano ("Little Miss Sunshine") and Dillon Freasier are both excellent as the callow preacher and Plainview's young son, H.W., respectively; and Robert Elswit's award-winning cinematography evokes the beauty of the setting without ever downplaying its bleakness. Finally, Jonny Greenwood's haunting score nicely underlines the purple-prose nature of the piece.
Alternately visionary and pretentious, "There Will Be Blood" may not be for all tastes and audience demographics, but its uniqueness, daring and style remind us of why many of us enjoy going to the movies in the first place.