In Theaters: PHANTOM THREAD (2017)

PHANTOM THREAD
(US - 2017)

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, Vicky Krieps, Gina McKee, Brian Gleeson, Camilla Rutherford, Harriet Sansom Harris, Julia Davis, Lujza Richter, George Glasgow, Nicholas Mander, Eric Sigmundsson, Emma Clandon. (R, 130 mins)

In the months leading up to the release of PHANTOM THREAD, Daniel Day-Lewis announced it would be his final film and that his retirement was effective immediately. If he's serious, and there's no reason to doubt him this time (he did announce his retirement following GANGS OF NEW YORK but was back three years later in the little-seen THE BALLAD OF JACK AND ROSE), then his second collaboration with his THERE WILL BE BLOOD writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson offers an appropriately masterful performance for his swan song. Day-Lewis is arguably the world's greatest living actor, with three Oscars and another three nominations, including one for this film, and that's a remarkable number for a guy who doesn't work all that much. PHANTOM THREAD is his first film since winning an Oscar for 2012's LINCOLN, and only his seventh in the last 20 years. He's an actor who's notorious for immersing himself in roles, embracing method acting in extreme ways, isolating himself from family and friends, demanding to be referred to by his character's name, and never breaking character for the duration of the shoot. That kind of dedication can be exhausting in the pursuit of one's art, and to an extent, Anderson fashions PHANTOM THREAD as a commentary on such commitment. Day-Lewis is Reynolds Woodcock, an erudite, in-demand fashion designer in post-war, 1950s London. He designs dresses for society's elite, up to and including royalty. He has obsessive routines and grows prickly and abrasive when they're intruded upon or deviated from in any way. And like any artist, he leaves a part of himself in his work, in the form of a word or phrase stitched inside the fabric.

He's also never gotten over the death of his mother (his favorite suit has a lock of her hair sewn inside the fabric near the breast pocket so she's always with him) and is only person he's close to is his cold, brittle, spinster sister Cyril (Mike Leigh regular Lesley Manville, also Oscar-nominated). Reynolds has a seemingly romantic companion in Johanna (Camilla Rutherford), but he's growing tired of her and wants her out of his house and out of his life, leaving the dirty work of dumping her to Cyril, who's used to handling this part of Reynolds' personal life. By chance, Reynolds meets a waitress named Alma (Vicky Krieps) and is immediately taken with her. He invites her to dinner and has her model some dress designs. Reynolds impulsively moves Alma into the Woodcock house and she learns quickly that spontaneity and surprise are not his way of doing things. He all but shushes her at breakfast, annoyed at the noise she makes buttering her toast and declaring his morning tea ruined after she attempts to make conversation. She's advised against such future behavior by Cyril, who recommends "Perhaps you should take breakfast in your room." As time goes on, Reynolds grows tired of Alma like he has Johanna and all the others, but he underestimates her time and again. Unlike his past conquests, she sees through his manipulative mind games and knows how to counter him (on their first date, she informs him "If you want to have a staring contest with me, you will lose") and doesn't back down from his sneering and pithy insults (on her serving asparagus with butter instead of his preferred oil and salt: "Right now, I'm just admiring my own gallantry for eating it the way you've prepared it!"), which not only up-ends Reynolds' life, but also sends their relationship on an oddly perverse turn where its truest nature is not revealed until very late in the film.

It wouldn't take much tweaking to turn PHANTOM THREAD into a high-end, arthouse Lifetime movie. Reynolds is a narcissistic control freak of the highest order, and while it never quite ventures into "thriller" territory, there's a pervasive unease over the threat being possible and the general sense of the unknown over exactly where this is going. There's certainly an overt Hitchcockian element to the proceedings, from Cyril sort-of serving as the ever-present housekeeper Mrs. Danvers in REBECCA to the VERTIGO-like forced makeovers of Reynolds' women into his ideal vision of beauty to the mother fixation straight out of PSYCHO and even the name Alma, which was also the name of Mrs. Hitchcock. Anderson takes the relationship of Reynolds and Alma into a wholly unpredictable direction that ultimately puts all the pieces strewn throughout the film into place. The performances of the three leads are superb and just watching Day-Lewis at work is a privilege. Watch the little bits of nuance he adds to every look and every gesture. Watch the incredulous glare he shoots Alma when she points out that his instructions weren't clear--she talks back to him and his look is one of simultaneous rage and desire, and it's just a little silent moment that speaks volumes about Reynolds. Day-Lewis turned in one of cinema's all-time great performances for Anderson with THERE WILL BE BLOOD, and it's a shame they won't--for new--be collaborating on anything in the future. Much like the Woodcock siblings, PHANTOM THREAD can be cold and stand-offish, but it's a bit more instantly accessible than Anderson's brilliant but often impenetrable THE MASTER or his labyrinthine Thomas Pynchon adaptation INHERENT VICE, and like all Anderson films, PHANTOM THREAD is one that reveals more with each subsequent viewing. Functioning as his own cinematographer, Anderson works old-school, shooting on film and using BARRY LYNDON-esque natural lighting that gives PHANTOM THREAD a thoroughly natural aura that makes it look like something that was made 50 years ago. It's not quite THERE WILL BE BLOOD, but if indeed this is the last time we're seeing Daniel Day-Lewis onscreen, then he went out with a portrayal almost as indelible as BLOOD's Daniel Plainview or GANGS OF NEW YORK's Bill the Butcher. To whom is the torch passed? Is there another actor out there who's this good?

In Theaters: LINCOLN (2012)

LINCOLN
(US - 2012)

Directed by Steven Spielberg.  Written by Tony Kushner.  Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Strathairn, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hal Holbrook, James Spader, John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, Jackie Earle Haley, Gloria Reuben, Bruce McGill, Jared Harris, Lee Pace, Michael Stuhlbarg, Peter McRobbie, Walton Goggins,  David Costabile, Gulliver McGrath, Joseph Cross, Jeremy Strong, S. Epatha Merkerson, Stephen Spinella, David Oyelowo, Lukas Haas, Dane DeHaan, David Warshofsky, Elizabeth Marvel, Bill Camp, Raynor Scheine.  (PG-13, 150 mins)

Last year's excellent WAR HORSE was an unabashedly sentimental, defiantly old-fashioned epic that Steven Spielberg intended to be his "John Ford movie."  The biopic LINCOLN, written by Tony Kushner (ANGELS IN AMERICA) and based in part on Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals, finds the legendary Spielberg in that same old-fashioned John Ford mode, which is fitting considering the 1940 classic YOUNG MR. LINCOLN is one of Ford's best-known non-westerns.  From the moment the great Daniel Day-Lewis was cast as Abraham Lincoln, expectations were high and statements like "Just give him the Oscar now" were rampant.  Day-Lewis is one of cinema's greatest actors, and one who works infrequently enough that it's an event every time he's back on the screen.  Not surprisingly, the famously committed actor is a terrific choice for Lincoln, particularly in the physical aspect with body language and the way he looks increasingly gaunt and fatigued as the film goes on. 

Set in the last three and a half months of Lincoln's life, LINCOLN gets off to a rocky start and takes quite some time to find its groove.  The film focuses on both ending the Civil War and passing the Republican-backed 13th Amendment abolishing slavery.  Much of the time is spent on the backroom wheeling and dealing:  Secretary of State Seward (David Strathairn) hiring a trio of pushy lobbyists (John Hawkes, Tim Blake Nelson, and a scene-stealing James Spader) to strongarm some Democratic opponents into joining the Republicans;  the noble efforts of wily and snide Republican House Ways and Means chairman and vocal Lincoln critic Thaddeus Stevens (a grand, magnificent performance by Tommy Lee Jones) to not just abolish slavery but to grant freed slaves full and equal citizenship; and Lincoln himself working political friends and foes in order to get the Amendment passed. 

The first half or so of LINCOLN is filled with a large number of frequently cumbersome grandstanding speeches and assorted pontifications, fitting for the politicians of the time but not exactly cinematic in nature.  There's a near drinking-game level frequency to the number of times everyone in a crowded room drops what they're doing to listen to another cornpone anecdote from Honest Abe as Spielberg slowly pulls the camera in towards Day-Lewis while John Williams' predictably reverent, swelling score tells us that there's a Profound Message.  It gets to the point where you'll nod in agreement during one such scene where Secretary of War Stanton (Bruce McGill) throws his arms up in frustration and storms out, bellowing "I cannot listen to another one of your stories!"  Sure, some of them are funny (the one about George Washington's picture in the bathroom is great), but let's get on with it.  Day-Lewis gives his all to the role, but the film rarely lets us see Lincoln the man.  The scenes with Mary Todd Lincoln (an occasionally hammy Sally Field) seem rote and predictable and a subplot about their son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) leaving college to enlist feels cut down.  There are some very good moments between Day-Lewis and Gulliver McGrath as youngest son Tad, so we get some attempts at showing us that side of Lincoln, but primarily, it's Lincoln the historical figure.  For a director who's always worn his emotions on his sleeve in his films, Spielberg's LINCOLN is frequently cold, distant, and off-putting and it's not until the second half when the vote on the Amendment becomes the focus that the film finally warms up and the senses of humanity and drama kick in, though honestly, the film never really fully catches fire.

What's odd is that, considering how you'd think Day-Lewis' performance should be the emotional core of the film, it's Jones' Thaddeus Stevens that leaves the bigger impression.  Too often, it feels like too many cast members are just playing Civil War dress-up (even Day-Lewis at times), but Jones disappears into his role from his first scene all the way to his last, when we see just how important the passage of the 13th Amendment really was to him.  This is the best work Jones has done in years and it has to make him frontrunner for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

The film looks absolutely superb (Janusz Kaminski has been the cinematographer of every Spielberg film since SCHINDLER'S LIST nearly 20 years ago) from the muddy, bloody opening on a battlefield to the dusty, shadowy interiors of the White House and various Washington offices.  Let's be honest here:  Spielberg is decades past the point of needing to prove himself to anyone, and merely OK Spielberg is still better than the A-games of most filmmakers.  Though it gets markedly better as it progresses, LINCOLN doesn't play like a film with much repeat viewing value, and feels like second-string, inessential Spielberg.  And not in the way of a rare frivolous, forgettable Spielberg film like, say, THE TERMINAL or INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, but in a way that something that has this much going for it should just be...better?  It probably has a long life ahead of it in junior high and high school history classes, but really, it's a "pretty good" film with expectations of being a "great" one.