Phantom Thread Reviews

Have a lot of admiration for Paul Thomas Anderson and really like to love all his work, especially 'Boogie Nights' and 'There Will Be Blood', even finding a lot to admire with his weakest film ('Inherent Vice' from personal opinion). Also consider Daniel Day-Lewis a wonderful actor and that his triple Oscar wins are testament to that.

With 'Phantom Thread' being touted as Day-Lewis' swan song (very sad) and with so many award nominations, interest was incredibly high despite not being completely sold by the advertising. Seeing it yesterday when it first came out in my country, found it to be a truly outstanding film in every regard. One of the most beautiful and most interesting films seen recently and the standout so far of the 2017 films released here this year. Also consider it Anderson's best film since 'There Will Be Blood' and one of his very best.

'Phantom Thread' is a visually stunning film. It's beautifully and cleverly photographed (the techniques and types of camera-work being typical Anderson), with the cinematography allowing one to be in awe of the sumptuous production design and jaw droppingly gorgeous costume design (my win for this year's Oscar for its category).

Anderson's distinctive directing style is written all over the film. Meaning visual boldness, the memorable way in how he uses music, how he handles thematic consistency and having characters that are flawed but realistically so while not being necessarily likeable. All present here.

Jonny Greenwood's music score is as ever an interesting and layered in mood, hauntingly beautiful and clever one on its own, one that is not forgotten. Just as remarkable is the sympathetic way it's used while being like its own character in the film. Undoubtedly the reason for its Oscar nomination. The pre-existing music makes every bit as much of an impression, perhaps even more so. Most of it classical, with a mix of solo piano, symphonic and especially chamber music (on top of popular songs from the period). They are either understatedly heard in the background, appropriate for a gentle piece like Faure's Berceuse, or like characters of their own that enhance the intense mood of the scene in question, such as the Schubert and especially the Debussy (made to sound easy by the performance of the quartet, when it's actually a nightmare, Debussy in general is hard having sung many of his songs and he can be unforgiving to vocalists).

Throughout, 'Phantom Thread' is very thoughtfully and even poetically scripted, with remarkable complexity. To make Alma an ambiguous character with vague motivations was an intriguing choice, and while it will no doubt frustrate viewers and will be considered a flaw it came over very well and only added to the realistically complicated dynamic of her relationship with Reynolds.

In terms of the story, 'Phantom Thread' is anchored by this relationship dynamic. It may not be a novel theme, with other films having done it (a recent example being 'Mother!'), but 'Phantom Thread' handles this far better than most of them, what it says about it is illuminating, fresh and surprisingly subtle. Also effective was how the high fashion world is portrayed, on the outside it's glamorous in how it looks and is worn and methodical in how the dresses are made but behind the scenes there is bitterness and cruelness, a very truthful, if again not new, depiction and a relevant one by today's standards.

Acting is throughout extremely good, superb with the three leads. Vicky Krieps is a powerful and subtle presence (very difficult to do with a character with as much ambiguity that Alma does), while Lesley Manville makes a somewhat thankless role terrifyingly formidable. But it's Day-Lewis' film, it's perhaps his most personal role with a little of himself in Reynolds and Day-Lewis gives the performance of his life portraying a man with vulnerable sensitivity and erratic quirks and is simply mesmerising, his swan-song being one of his finest performances and one of the year's overall best too. Am rooting for either him or Gary Oldman for 'Darkest Hour' for the Best Actor Oscar.

It's already been said that Reynolds is not a likeable or relatable character. To me, he is not likeable but he is flawed in a realistic way (as said a trademark of Anderson and one of his strongest examples) and personally could identify with his quirks and sensitivity, being an autistic person prone to sensitivity and erratic moods, a lot of difficulties and obstacles having to be faced all my life and having a few compulsive quirks of my own. Though not as extreme as those of Reynolds, still try to be nice and easy to get on with despite all this.

Overall, a divine film. A long film and a slow one but hugely rewarding. An easy 10/10. Bethany Cox

Since I'm such a huge fan of Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis, I was obviously dying to watch this movie. Well, to be honest, even though I really liked it, pretty much like his 2 previous directing efforts, it didn't really blow me away after all. I mean, from a technical point of view, sure, it was quite mesmerising, every shot was gorgeous, the soundtrack perfectly set the mood and, as usual, Daniel Day-Lewis was just amazing and completely disappeared in this character. Eventually, what bothered me with this movie was this love story which was in my opinion actually rather unromantic. I mean, you can say whatever you want about this guy but, at least, he was honest as he didn't try to fool anyone about his qualities and shortcomings. On the other hand, I won't blame Vicky Krieps who gave a strong performance but it was just rather sad to see her character trying to force this man to become someone else and, in the process, she also pushed them to stay together when their relationship had obviously run its course. Of course, you might argue that she was just completely fanatic as he was, albeit in a different area, but remains the question, what was her added value in his life and in this couple? Not much, as far as I was concerned. On the other hand, you could argue that many couples stay together from the wrong reasons and I guess that’s a choice they both made after all. Anyway, to conclude, even if it didn't become another masterpiece, it was still another solid directing effort from Anderson and another powerhouse performance from Day-Lewis so the damned thing is definitely worth a look.

Paul Thomas Anderson traffics in films that are purposefully oblique. They are sustained on mood, on character, on a ripeness of visual poetry that recalls the titans of cinema in a way that refracts them like a funhouse mirror. Phantom Thread, for all of its straight-ahead narrative propulsion, is as fascinatingly opaque as The Master or Magnolia.

 

Not only is there a sense of tightly-wound control from the first frame, but there’s a palpable sense of unease as to where this is going for a long period of time. Open with a harsh white background and the title in ornately circular script and a sound of organized noise or elegantly controlled feedback. If you’re getting the sense that you’re about to engage in an old-fashioned gothic romance, then you’re right.

 

The world of Reynolds Woodcock is one of both meticulous routine and an ominous sense that everything will explode in either violence or carnality, maybe both, at any moment. His co-dependent relationship with his sister, Cyril, is one that extends from the professional to the personal as she functions as both sister, matron, assistant, schoolmarm, and drill sergeant. She never rises her voice above a clipped, patient tone that exudes icy dominance and remove even when trying to display kindness or give a compliment.

 

Like a sacrificial lamb stumbles an innocent, Alma, the latest in a long line of dewy woman functioning as muses and goddess for Woodcock before he grows bored of them and sends them packing with cruel efficiency through Cyril’s machinations. Yet there’s something about Alma, a core of steely resolve, a rebellious streak, a refusal to merely placate egos and function as an object. It is through her that we hear this story, and we’re never quite sure about how truthful her words are at any given moment.

 

Yet it’s that sense of unease that makes Phantom Thread so absorbing. For all of the outward beauty of the clothes and settings, for all of the considerable sex appeal that Daniel Day-Lewis contains, there’s a burbling sense that something is never quite “right” about anything happening in this world. It all appears orderly and measured, immaculate and luxuriant, a world where a shadow contains much portent of things to come.

 

Anderson has frequently flirted with magical realism or outright dipped into near-biblical imagery, and Phantom Thread is possibly his most outward concession to unreality yet. Reynolds Woodcock sees his mother while sick in bed, and we have no reason to believe that his spectral presence is a mere hallucination. Death and ghosts of things past haunt the Woodcock’s palatial rooms and relationships.

 

Reynolds and Cyril are both committed to the legacy of the Woodcock fashion house. Both operate under the illusion that any piece of couture will last forever, and maybe they will but there’s no way to know or guarantee posterity despite their best efforts. It is in this obsession with death and legacy that Phantom Thread first shows its gothic romance cards, as it is also here that the ghost of Woodcock’s mother appears. Suddenly you’re connecting Phantom Thread to works like Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, and the threads (no pun intended, I promise) connecting them become a fairly straight line.

 

Then the relationship with Alma takes on stranger contours and actions. He reveals a certain superstitious center to his character early on when he admits to putting messages into the dresses he makes for his clients, there’s a particularly loaded one for a princess that I won’t reveal, as if he’s either blessing the garments or trying to exorcise them from his personal demons. Alma begins as a passive listener to this, filing it away for future use, and becoming a blank form for him to sculpt.

 

Sculpt he does, but Alma quickly reveals herself as someone malcontent with living her life in so passive a manner. She upends his orderly life and rebels against his complicated rules and regulations, throws his routines into disarray and asserts her power over him with some surprising choices. A late scene where she delivers a monologue about wanting him kept on his back flashes a kinkier, more disturbed side to this relationship and Alma’s character than we had previously been allowed to witness.

 

Naturally, much of Phantom Thread is about pageantry, how could it not be when the main character is a couturier, and power. That crosses over into the central triangle of the film. Reynolds and Alma duel and love with such ferocity that the twin points became an equilibrium between the characters. Reynolds starts off as the one with all the power in the relationship, but Alma subverts his expectations and throws his routine out the window to recreate another with her at the center. Where does this leave Cyril in the end? She was the original hidden, guiding hand of Woodcock up to this point, and we don’t get a clear answer. She does not give us her place in her brother’s life easily, that much is clear.

 

There’s no easy answers here, as there aren’t in many of Anderson’s films post-Punch Drunk Love since they’ve gotten increasingly austere and esoteric. Frankly, I enjoying trying to limn the mysteries of his films, especially if they contain performances as impeccable and magnetic as Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, and Vicky Krieps are here. Day-Lewis is no surprise, but Manville manages to not only hold the scene with him but overpower him at certain points, which is no small feat and a point to underscore the fact that Day-Lewis’ Reynolds is a man who wants to domineered and disciplined by a motherly figure in a persistent state of organized chaos and soothing love. Krieps takes that baton and runs with it into a perverse place that places their love as both nurturing and a model of erotic power imbalances.

 

Phantom Thread was a shock to me, but in the best of ways. It presents a triangle of people as an every changing organism where power gets displaced as often as the wind blows. If this isn’t one of 2017’s best films, then I don’t know what else could possibly compare.   

Literally sick love theme, enters a bit late, after long exposition of Day Lewis's style of love, of work and live. Alma's character has to convince not only Day Lewis, and sis Lesley Manville, but the spectator that she is a flame for him.