New Release! Phantom Thread (2018)

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

A beautifully-constructed and acted film, though one that seemed to be missing one or two essential ingredients to fully resonate with me.

The movie follows the romance between Stevens Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and Alma (Vicky Krieps). Woodcock is a 60-something-year-old fashion designer of the highest order in 1950s England, catering to artistocrats and royalty both local and international. A quirky, finicky sort, Woodcock has never been married and tends to only maintain brief relationships with an cycle of ever-changing young muses. When he attracts what is likely to be the latest object of his peculiarly self-absorbed affections, Alma, he soon learns that she has more of an individual will than his past loves. Alma's independent spirit begins to play havok with Woodcock's guarded emotions, eventually affecting his ability to maintain his intense focus on his fashion design business, which he runs with his stern elder sister, the business-savvy Cyril (Lesley Manville).

As I write this, it has been about a week since I saw the movie, and I am still processing the film and deciding exactly how much I liked it. And I did like it. Yet, it still has not completely grabbed hold of my imagination or spirit in the way that other Anderson movies have, such as There Will Be Blood or even Boogie Nights, in its way. P. T. Anderson loves immersing himself and us viewers into worlds which we are unlikely to have seen before - whether the world of the changing 1970s pornography business, the ruthless world of big oil around the turn of the 20th century, or the world of aristocratic fashion in 1950s England. And like those earlier films, Phantom Thread  presents that last world in a highly engaging way, even for someone like me who knows and cares very little about it. By constructing setting and characters so skillfully, we are drawn into just what makes the highly prickly Woodcock and his exquisite work so very attractive to those around him.

A large part of the setting's appeal is the lush and lavish sets and costumes on dislpay throughout the picture. Again, I am one who cares little about fashion, but it is hard not to enjoy the visual splendor of this movie, at least on a purely aesthetic level.

Alma (left) jabs back after Woodcock suggests that she she
"has no taste." The emotional tug-of-war is at the heart of
this film, though it is a relatively measured battle described
with the same calm pace as Woodcock's design process.

Of course, the visuals are merely the shallowest aspect of this movie. Anderson's best movies have always been about the interactions between interesting characters. With Phantom Thread, I felt that this was almost accomplished, but fell just short of completely arresting me. Woodcock's genius, eccentricities, and difficult nature are fairly fascinating. And there is an intellectual appeal to the way that Alma becomes what seems to be the first real challenge to his carefully-constructed world and identity. But it is mostly an intellectual appeal, rather than an emotional one. This is partly due to the calm, often cold and detached way that the story is told and the characters often behave. Alma is clearly meant to be the more grounded, no-nonsense, open character here, yet we only ever learn so much about her. The story does get into Woodcock's family background and we get some important bits about his childhood, but Alma? We never learn so much as which country she is from, anything about her family, or much else. She almost serves purely as a bizarre balm to Woodcock's closed-off inner soul - a sort of uber-British version of the "manic pixie dreamgirl" type - whose sole purpose in the story is to "fix" the broken genius.

This is, obviously, just my current read on the movie. Even now I feel that other interpretations can be made; I'm likely to rethink my own feelings about this movie, even if I don't bother to see it again any time soon. It is one, however, which I would recommend to most people. Provided that you don't grow bored with very "British" movies that tend to move with a very measured pace and focus on rather subtle interactions between oft-uptight characters, then you're likely to find something to like in this one. 

Before I Die #516: A Room with a View (1985)

This is the 516th of 1,149 films on the "Before You Die" lists that I've watched. 

Director: James Ivory

Not exactly my kind of movie, but it does what it sets out to do very well.

Based on the 1908 novel by E.M. Forester, A Room With a View is a well-done adaptation that hits all its marks. It tells the story of Lucy Middlechurch (Helena Bonham Carter), a young, English middle-class woman who becomes embroiled in a classic "which man should I marry?" quandry. The opposing forces are what any fan of such period English tales would expect: marry for love or to meet social expectations and find financial security? For Lucy, these two sides are represented by the free-spirited and exuberant George Emerson (Julian Sands) and the priggish, upper-class Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day-Lewis).

Just from the artful composition of this scene, I don't even
need to tell you which is the uptight Cecil and which is the
self-assured George.

The pieces are set into place over the course of an initial trip to Florence, where Lucy meets George. When she returns to England, she starts to weigh her feelings for George against the pressure of marrying Cecil. What follows is the typical tap dance through social propriety and class-conscious protocols with which any reader of Jane Austen is familiar. Lucy is pulled one way and then another by various friends and family members, culminating in the rejection of one hopeful suitor in favor of the other.

Again, it's not exactly my cup of tea, but the film does a good job of telling the story. The acting is superb. In addition to the talents listed above, the film also includes Judy Dench, Maggie Smith, Denholm Eliot, and basically any English actor worth his or her salt who was alive in 1985. They all nail it.

Though I may have found the themes of class consciousness a bit dull, there is enough humor to pull through a more cynical viewer like myself. I may have found Maggie Smith's "poor cousin Charlotte" character annoying, but that's easily balanced by the more biting humor of other characters like George and his father. Even Lucy herself has grit, which is nice to see.

It's easy to recommend this to those who love this kind of movie, and in fact, I'm sure that any fan of Pride and Prejudice and its ilk has probably already seen this one several times. If you haven't, then I'm confident that you'll love it (my wife does, and she's a tremendous appreciator of such films). If you're more like me, don't be surprised if you enjoy it a little more than you expect. You can think of it as a sophisticated "date movie," if  it helps.

So, 516 films seen. Only 633 to go before I die...