Phantom Thread (2017) Review - Director Series
Ten years after Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis’s first collaboration, they teamed up again. Over 20 years after Daniel Plainview exclaimed, “I’m finished.”
Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a major fashion designer for high society. Reynolds and his sister Cyril (Lesli Manville) have a well-oiled routine machine.
On vacation, Reynolds meets a new muse, Alma (Vicky Krieps). She’s a disruption in the Reynolds and Cyril machine, unsure if Alma will be temporary like all the other Woodcock muses, or if will she find a way through Reynolds’ heart.
Like many other PTA films, his latest film always feels completely different from his previous works. On its face, Phantom Thread appears to be an idiosyncratic work amongst PTA’s filmography.
Yet, I find this film in harmony with The Master. However, The Master is about a toxic relationship that will never work, Phantom Thread is about fighting for a relationship you know is worth fighting for, when you find that someone.
That notion is also very similar to Punch-Drunk Love. The Adam Sandler movie shows what it is like to find someone who completely understands you. Phantom Thread shows what happens afterwards, when your single life routine is disrupted when attempting to combine two lives.
It’s one of the reasons Paul Thomas Anderson is my favorite filmmaker. On the surface, they appear completely different, but they all touch on similar themes in various ways.
Paul worked with a smaller crew on this film, since most of the film takes place in Reynolds’s London home, he served as his own DP after years of working with Robert Elswit. The title of Cinematographer is uncredited in the credits, but it was Paul’s sumptuous vision.
On a rewatch, this may be my favorite script of PTAs. It’s cryptic, as if he were working within the Hays Code. It’s another hilarious screenplay. One that maybe goes unnoticed on the first watch, but the more you watch, you realize this is a romantic comedy.
Daniel Day-Lewis and Leslie Manville are equally brilliant as siblings, believable that they have a 50-year bond that would be impenetrable. However, the newcomer Vicky Krieps is the real standout. Coming out of nowhere and holding her own against a titan like Daniel.
Not that Day-Lewis gives that vibe, but it works that they have this fight for the audience, like Alma and Reynolds fight for control of the relationship.
The term “Phantom Thread” in a fashion sense is from the Victorian era. It refers to a seamstress who would go home so exhausted from work that they would continue the motions of sewing even after they’re home.
What struck me on this watch is the “phantom threads” in the sense of a thread/stitch you cannot see. Those ways in which a relationship works that no outside person can see. What makes your relationship work? No one will ever know how it ticks, but it works for you two.
With Alma and Reynolds, this is exemplified in the end. Reynolds knowingly eats the poisonous mushroom to be weak and taken care of by Alma, who then gets to feel in control. It’s how they work.
We watch as they struggle to figure this out, and PTA even leads us to believe that Alma is going to kill Reynolds. But Alma never intended to, just regain control.
It can be difficult to meld two lives together, especially one that has been single for 50 years and catered to. I don’t think there has been a more perfect film to exemplify this. Especially one this quotable.
5/5 Stars
