A worthy period piece from Anderson.

Rating: 10/10 (16 August 2008)

Director Paul Thomas Anderson does another period piece, skipping further back in time then he did with his famous 1997 work "Boogie Nights". This time, the destination is the United States in the early years of the 20th century, with a brief epilogue set some time after the Wall Street crash of 1929. The subject is the California oil industry, based (very, very loosely) on Upton Sinclair's famous book "Oil!". The character is Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis in his second Oscar-winning role.
The story follows Plainview as he pursues his dream of earning enough money to separate himself forever from other people, who he despises as a general rule. He has a son, H.W., who he actually does care for, though at the same time he loves money; one is reminded of one analysis of Shylock that said that the most charitable thing to be said about his attitudes was that if he didn't put his daughter before his ducats, at least the reverse wasn't true. Plainview is given a hot tip by Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) about huge amounts of oil in his home town, and hurries to buy up all the neighbouring areas. The major other character is Eli Sunday (also Dano), a would-be evangelical preacher and miracle-worker. If Plainview is brutal capitalism, Sunday is fundamentalist religion (recalling the huckster faith-healers of later decades). As business grows, the conflict between the two grows based on minor acts of spite and conflicting worldviews.
The character of Plainview is the movie, basically. As played by Day-Lewis, in a volcanic performance, he is a mass of contradictions and impulses: he genuinely cares for his son, but at the same time he is driven by greed for money. When his son becomes deafened in an accident, Plainview first cannot stay beside him because of the accident, and later, struggling to deal with it, sends him away to the city. In what I think Plainview regards as Sunday's most offensive act, he forces him to face up to this action and show genuine weakness and desperation to escape the possible wrath of God. Plainview later reenacts this scene at the climax, with the roles reversed, to remarkable effect. Occasionally, he explodes into violence, particularly when family is brought up; as he relates to one character who later falls victim to this violence, he doesn't like people, and at times he seems like he does want to reach out. Ultimately, though, he is a cynical, vengeful, black-hearted old man that Ebenezer Scrooge would be appalled by.
Anderson and his crew meticulously reconstruct the time period, conveying the many dangers faced by the pioneer workers in the early oil industry. More than one many dies a grisly death as a result, and blows sting the audience as sharply as the bolts from Anton Chigurh's airgun.
On another note, this is often called an adaptation of Sinclair's "Oil!", but it is not, really. Anderson takes one or two ideas from the novel, perhaps, but among other things, the names are all changed (Plainview and Sunday have been given Meaningful Names in lieu of the more ordinary Ross and Watkins), an the plot is different, focussing on the father character. Most significantly, the moral of the story is completely reversed: the tycoon in Sinclair's novel is a genuinely likable figure who is corrupt and brutal because the system is corrupt and brutal. Anderson remakes this to the story of a sociopath who is rotten because of his own nature, with the system itself apart from him seen much more benignly. There are mentions made of monopolies held by men like John D. Rockefeller, but all the other characters seem reasonable and cower in fear of Plainview. Not that it isn't a good movie, but it seems a strange adaptation that completely changes the meaning of one of the great social commentators of the 20th century.
All in all, I quite quite liked this movie; as a film, I felt it was much more wholistic than the Coens' "No Country For Old Men" (though my personal vote for the Oscar would have been "Atonement").