Like watching plate tectonics

Rating: 6/10 (11 January 2009)

Maybe we have exhausted the possibilities of a particular kind of film-making. Maybe there is only so much you can tell when you forgo explanation, when every motive is ambiguous, when events unfold with the unpredictability and unknowability of life itself. Maybe there is a limit to what you can show without telling. Or maybe, "There Will Be Blood" just failed at showing what it needed to tell.
The first part of the film shows a tough, bitter oil man seeking his fortune in an isolated backwater town. It is suggested that he exploits his son and the community in his quest for oil, but we also see him care for his son and the community appears to prosper.
Prone to drink and a violent temper, he commits a few atrocious acts and then the movie jumps forward a number of years to show that he has become a monster. Then the film ends.
In between there is really no tension or dramatic conflict. While the main character is played evocatively, I couldn't tell you what his significance is, either historically, as a moral example, or for the surrounding cast. He is presented as a force of nature, without comment or context.
Which makes this film like watching plate tectonics. For a long time nothing happens, then something erupts, then nothing happens. The causes remain hidden deep underground. It might make for oil, but doesn't make good film.