OVP: Phantom Thread (2017)

Film: Phantom Thread (2017)
Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Oscar History: 6 nominations/1 win (Best Picture, Director, Actor-Daniel Day-Lewis, Supporting Actress-Lesley Manville, Score, Costume Design*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

There are very few directors I run as hot-and-cold with as Paul Thomas Anderson.  I'm always there for his pictures (I've seen all but two, and both came out before I graduated from high school), but for me he's got one all-timer (There Will Be Blood), films I love (The Master, Boogie Nights), films I'm fine with (Inherent Vice), and films I absolutely abhor (Magnolia).  I genuinely feel like while I always know what I'm going to be getting with him (let's see what fun way we're going to twist masculinity this week), I rarely understand if I'm going to appreciate the recipe.  Phantom Thread, his latest (aware I'm behind on this review, but...I don't have an excuse-just read on, none of us is perfect), is an unusual picture for Anderson.  A director most interested in the stories of men (and to be real, that's ultimately what Phantom Thread is), he goes into the more feminine realm of fashion, and takes a look at what might be Daniel Day-Lewis's final onscreen role as Reynolds Woodcock.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about a controlling, brilliant fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock, who spends most of his days meticulously designing dresses for women of upper-class London alongside his firm, more-mannered sister Cyril (Manville).  One day he meets a waitress Alma (Kreps), who becomes his muse & lover, despite their obvious difference in station and personality.  Alma frustrates Reynolds, and Cyril treats her as someone who will be around only shortly, but Alma proves resilient and survives Reynolds' behavior.  After a particularly brutal fight, Alma poisons him with mushrooms, and nurses him back to health, making him fall madly in love with her (through codependence).  The final quarter of the film is Reynolds realizing that his hold on the fashion industry is collapsing (Cyril implies that he's becoming dated in his style), but then having him submit to Alma poisoning him all over again, realizing that it is she, and not his fashion world, that will ignite his future meticulous routine.

The film is gloriously pulled together, with elegant music and immaculate costume work (truly both would have been worthy trophies for the Oscars), but it's those two twists (Alma's poisoning and then Reynolds' submitting to this as part of his life) that will dictate your opinions of Phantom Thread.  It's not expected, particularly Reynolds' signing off on Alma being the one who decides whether he lives or dies, and it's decidedly messed-up.  The film is hardly alone in looking at an almost BDSM-style relationship (we've seen that in other movies, most notably the Fifty Shades Trilogy), but it comes as shocking and unexpected in the confines of what we'd assume was a period movie.  Alma's revenge feels somewhat justified considering the abuse that Reynolds has slung at her, but it's still shocking.

It also doesn't entirely work.  Forgetting for a second that the idea of equating abuse with love is problematic at best and enabling at worst, it also seems strange for the film's final moments, with Alma assuming an idyllic marriage where she'll occasionally have to attempt to murder her husband, feels preposterous-do we really think that these two people can sustain such a relationship long enough for children and a family?  Do we want to?  The film's viewpoints feel muddled in the final third, perhaps bringing in an ending so shocking because Anderson doesn't entirely know how to finish the picture (his movies, in my opinion, generally struggle to find a connection between the set-up and the delivery).  This isn't to say that Phantom Thread isn't without its pleasures-the acting is raw and masterful, even if Day-Lewis has been here before.  Manville gains best-in-show among the cast with her Cyril, a viper who has been forced to pretend to be a stone.  There's a great scene where Cyril, who has so far not dared to talk back to Reynolds, destroys him verbally, with Manville breathtakingly stepping on Day-Lewis's lines in an almost Altman-esque manner, finding a way to dominate Reynolds in a way that we learn she was in control for most of the film.  However, these touches can't make Phantom into the classic that Anderson is hoping is being made-instead it's merely a fascinating premise executed with relative, not exceptional, skill.