Well done but ugly and violent

Rating: 8/10 (21 January 2008)

Paul Thomas Anderson's nearly three-hour evocation of the dark side of twentieth-century capitalism, There Will Be Blood, has aspirations for greatness but only partially succeeds. Loosely based on Upton Sinclair's novel Oil, the film attempts to show how the individual's drive for success fueled the growth of a nation and also contributed to a national zeitgeist that says anything is available for a price, either money or blood. With an indirect reference to today's quest for domination of oil markets abroad and Godly materialism at home, Anderson is on target with his message but the film lacks convincing three-dimensional characters, a story that reflects the chiaroscuro of life with its ups and downs, its joy and pain, and any feeling for the world's beauty.
The main protagonist of the film is Daniel Plainview played by Daniel-Day-Lewis in one of his most challenging roles. Though shot in Texas, the film is set in California in 1898. Plainview is a wildcat oil driller who digs his mines with a pickax and sleeps in a tent, the epitome of the lonely entrepreneur. Though he breaks his leg while prospecting for silver, by 1902 Daniel has struck oil and has taken the infant son H. W. (Dillon Freasier) of a deceased miner to raise as his own. He is already an established oil man when Paul Sunday (Paul Dano), a strange looking young man tells him that for $500 he will let him know where oil is to be had. Not one to pass up an opportunity, Daniel goes for the bait and learns that the oil is beneath Sunday's ranch in the fictional town of New Boston, California.
Promising to provide roads and schools to the town and a $5000 donation to the church, Plainview acquires the Sunday's land in spite of the objection of Paul's twin brother Eli (Dano), a charismatic preacher and faith healer at the local Church of the Third Revelation. Though Daniel agrees to let him bless the oil well at its opening ceremony, he reneges on his promise and the remainder of the film becomes a tug of war between the oil man's greed and the preacher's irrationality. While the film makes no connection between subsequent events and the lack of the blessing, shortly afterwards, a worker is killed and Daniel's now 10-year old son becomes deaf after a mine explosion. Plainview's fortunes continue to grow, however, and he envisions making a deal with Union Oil to build a pipeline to the Pacific. Yet with his increase in wealth, the misanthropic nature of Plainview's character emerges.
He admits that "I have a competition in me. I don't like people and want to see them fail", yet we never learn the source of his antagonism to people nor anything about his background. Unable to oversee his oil wells and care for his son, he sends him to a school for the deaf in San Francisco without even saying goodbye. He is at first taken in by a stranger Henry (Kevin J. O'Connor), purporting to be his long lost brother but when his true identity is discovered, turns on him with a vengeance. This leads to an ending that is both a brilliant tour de force and a crass monument to punch-drunk ugliness. Daniel Day-Lewis fully captures the driven oil tycoon but he is little more than a caricature. While at times showing some inkling of humanity, Plainview is the driven embodiment of everything that is supposed to be wrong with the American capitalist.
Dano, who I admired in L.I.E. and Little Miss Sunshine, struggles mightily but doesn't quite fit the role of the crazed preacher, looking too young and too decent to be believed in the role. Ultimately, the film is a technical triumph with brilliant acting by Lewis, outstanding cinematography by Robert Elswit, and a compelling score by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. Yet it suffers on a human scale, leaving us with no one to admire and nothing to believe in, neither people nor institutions. As Andrew Sarris has put it, "In this movie-going year of unrestrained morbidity and malfeasance, There Will Be Blood fits in very nicely with all the prevailing paranoia on and off the screen." Like Plainview, There Will Be Blood is overly ambitious and dazzling in its look of profundity, yet, in spite of Daniel Day-Lewis, it is basically shallow and emotionally unsatisfying.