masterful

Rating: 8/10 (9 February 2008)

A gripping film from Paul Thomas Anderson. Expertly photographed and designed, with some amazing set pieces, including an oil-field fire which will bring back unpleasant memories for those of us who remember America's first war with Iraq, which may well have been in the director's mind: Mr Anderson is not afraid of powerful symbolism, as admirers of Magnolia will recall.
There Will Be Blood is a tale of single-minded acquisitiveness and greed. The central character, Daniel Plainview (great name!) is not able to tolerate any opposition or competition. Various stumbling-blocks, entrepreneurial and/or emotional, present themselves, the longest lasting ending in an extraordinary stand-off between Plainview and a fellow opportunist, played superbly by Paul Dano.
It's a long movie, but the time flies by. In fact for me the final half-hour or so is over-compressed, as though material from the source novel by Upton Sinclair was being glossed over by the movie's final time-jump. Probably unavoidable, and almost certainly the right decision, but I wonder if there are cut scenes that might surface in the DVD release...Regardless of this, the final scene is extraordinary.
Daniel Day-Lewis is breathtaking as Plainview. It's not just the sheer charisma of the man: the size of the performance, the truth of every moment, the complexity of thought that is shown crystal-clearly to the audience without any feeling of telegraphing, the sustaining of character through long takes with on occasions enormous physical demands: all this is jaw-dropping stuff.
In accepting an award for his role, Day-Lewis mentioned the passing of Heath Ledger, and has had some stick for it in the press because the two had never met, yet Day-Lewis was clearly moved at the passing of his fellow actor. For me it's clear that Ledger's performance in Brokeback Mountain has something in common with Day-Lewis's performance in There Will Be Blood, and that is this sense of uniqueness: the role and the actor were an all-time perfect match. As it was impossible to imagine any of Heath Ledger's contemporaries finding a way of triumphing over the challenges of bringing Ennis del Mar to life, it's equally impossible to imagine any of Day-Lewis' contemporaries scaling the heights, and plumbing the depths, of Daniel Plainview. Actually, in Day-Lewis' case, it's hard to imagine any of his predecessors managing it either. Not even Nicholson or Bogart, neither of whom could bring grandeur to the role - no disrespect to either: it's just that grandeur wasn't their thing. They made their careers at least in part by undercutting grandeur. Which leaves only, maybe, John Huston, who was able to blend a certain patrician quality with gnarled pragmatism in his few screen roles But could he have technically sustained the acting bravura of Day-Lewis in, say, the baptism scene of There Will Be Blood? I don't think so.
To sum up, this is a masterful movie, with a benchmark central performance.