With no prior knowledge, would you be convinced Boogie Nights and Phantom Thread were hatched from the same imagination?
Viewed back-to-back, a voluble, cocaine-throttled melodrama set against a delicate romance as black comedy; the connection would appear tenuous at best. Boogie Nights is so fastidiously structured, a quality that bears little resemblance to the harried pornographers at the center. Phantom Thread is moody and frayed, hardly befitting the subject of a haute couture dressmaker and his impeccable creations. Where they seem worlds apart—an emblem of his arc as a filmmaker—I’d argue that Anderson has been steadfast in one quality, an ongoing attempt to decipher just how all these misfits find their way home.
It’s been 21 years since Hard Eight, and on this, his eighth feature length film, Paul Thomas Anderson is making his warmest, most generous work to date. To describe Phantom Thread as welcoming wouldn’t be wholly accurate, but the film isn’t guarded. His older work is driven by scope and narrative. Strategized to the point where elements felt at arm’s length, like something wild displayed under glass vitrines.
Now, the bombast has been replaced with character studies and disjointed vignettes, something more unfinished, but soulful and resonant. Anderson’s still manages to play all of his favored cards—lush visuals, fascination with creators, moments that are utterly ludicrous—but the notable absence of his familiar California environs signals a subtle renegotiation of his auteuristic patterns. Much like Jonny Greenwood’s score, the opening shimmer of expected drone gives way to something far different, an elegant, piano-driven soundtrack.
And quick aside here, if there is one plot point of this our 21st century that has continued to delight and surprise, it’s Jonny’s second life as superb film scorer. Where it once seemed like Anderson’s calling card would be his stock company of players in front of the camera, these days it feels like Greenwood and editor Dylan Tichenor are the glue holding together his cinematic universe. But the setting, the score, the small stakes, all of it adds up to a work definable his own, but it feels like Anderson is comfortable doing less. Not cutting corners, but allowing substance to speak—and occasionally mumble—for itself.
Beyond the director, this picture belongs to three people, Daniel Day-Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock, Vicky Krieps as Alma, and Lesley Manville as Cyril Woodcock. The film is part parable, part romance, and bound together by humor I wouldn’t call treacly, but compare to treacle as it’s black, oozing, and weirdly sweet. Phantom Thread takes all of this and sashays its way through toxic masculinity, the myth of the burdened creative, and plain old inexplicable love. All without lingering to long, or pinning some finite answer on any of the above. But what gives the characters, and by extension the actors, such great strength are the power dynamics.
Less a thruple then they are acid, neutral, and base, Reynolds, sister Cyril, and muse/lover/pincushion Alma are engaged in their own little thrall. Centered around Reynolds and his renowned fashion house, House of Woodcock (apparently Daniel Day-Lewis chose the name), their love of self, love of each other, and love of the label collide on a sliding scale of staid glances to outright perturbation. As this dance lurches on, we eventually work our way to much darker designs. Though, show me a love without a sinister streak, and I’ll show you a love afraid to truly be itself. Also, without betraying too much, when her moment arrives, I want you to consider: does Alma merely do in a second what Reynolds has done across months?
The performances by Vicky Krieps and Daniel Day-Lewis will be much ballyhooed, and deservedly so, but I want to take a moment to shoutout to Lesley Manville. Both pillar and fulcrum, Manville plays her part with such effortless poise, she is low-key the MVP of this film. Though the story does belong to Alma and Reynolds, and this is where the concept of bespoke dressmaking warms me as narrative *ahem* thread.
“You can sew almost anything into the canvas of a coat,” is a line used in the trailer and spoken early in the film by Reynolds, and have you ever considered the internal life of a piece of clothing? We place a premium on the exterior, but if you consider the sourcing of things as ubiquitous as thread to more elegant pieces like a bolt of 17th-century Polish lace mentioned in the film, there is a far-ranging experience inside each article of clothing.
Consider your tracks of stitches, the nonsense of your particular seams, the odd shape of your neckline. Each element of a piece of clothing—independent of the other—is a kind of cacophony, but when assembled through attention and effort, something remarkable emerges, a fit for no one other than you. This notion of fit, no matter how unexpected, therein lies the touching hope at the core of Anderson's work. Save Daniel Plainview who is as feckless as American capitalism, Anderson loves to at least launch a trajectory of redemption for his characters. And for the once enfant terrible who is now husband and father to four children, perhaps this is the personal message sewn within Phantom Thread. Your fit, in defiance of all logic and convention, is out there.
—Monte Monreal
Viewed back-to-back, a voluble, cocaine-throttled melodrama set against a delicate romance as black comedy; the connection would appear tenuous at best. Boogie Nights is so fastidiously structured, a quality that bears little resemblance to the harried pornographers at the center. Phantom Thread is moody and frayed, hardly befitting the subject of a haute couture dressmaker and his impeccable creations. Where they seem worlds apart—an emblem of his arc as a filmmaker—I’d argue that Anderson has been steadfast in one quality, an ongoing attempt to decipher just how all these misfits find their way home.
It’s been 21 years since Hard Eight, and on this, his eighth feature length film, Paul Thomas Anderson is making his warmest, most generous work to date. To describe Phantom Thread as welcoming wouldn’t be wholly accurate, but the film isn’t guarded. His older work is driven by scope and narrative. Strategized to the point where elements felt at arm’s length, like something wild displayed under glass vitrines.
Now, the bombast has been replaced with character studies and disjointed vignettes, something more unfinished, but soulful and resonant. Anderson’s still manages to play all of his favored cards—lush visuals, fascination with creators, moments that are utterly ludicrous—but the notable absence of his familiar California environs signals a subtle renegotiation of his auteuristic patterns. Much like Jonny Greenwood’s score, the opening shimmer of expected drone gives way to something far different, an elegant, piano-driven soundtrack.
And quick aside here, if there is one plot point of this our 21st century that has continued to delight and surprise, it’s Jonny’s second life as superb film scorer. Where it once seemed like Anderson’s calling card would be his stock company of players in front of the camera, these days it feels like Greenwood and editor Dylan Tichenor are the glue holding together his cinematic universe. But the setting, the score, the small stakes, all of it adds up to a work definable his own, but it feels like Anderson is comfortable doing less. Not cutting corners, but allowing substance to speak—and occasionally mumble—for itself.
Beyond the director, this picture belongs to three people, Daniel Day-Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock, Vicky Krieps as Alma, and Lesley Manville as Cyril Woodcock. The film is part parable, part romance, and bound together by humor I wouldn’t call treacly, but compare to treacle as it’s black, oozing, and weirdly sweet. Phantom Thread takes all of this and sashays its way through toxic masculinity, the myth of the burdened creative, and plain old inexplicable love. All without lingering to long, or pinning some finite answer on any of the above. But what gives the characters, and by extension the actors, such great strength are the power dynamics.
Less a thruple then they are acid, neutral, and base, Reynolds, sister Cyril, and muse/lover/pincushion Alma are engaged in their own little thrall. Centered around Reynolds and his renowned fashion house, House of Woodcock (apparently Daniel Day-Lewis chose the name), their love of self, love of each other, and love of the label collide on a sliding scale of staid glances to outright perturbation. As this dance lurches on, we eventually work our way to much darker designs. Though, show me a love without a sinister streak, and I’ll show you a love afraid to truly be itself. Also, without betraying too much, when her moment arrives, I want you to consider: does Alma merely do in a second what Reynolds has done across months?
The performances by Vicky Krieps and Daniel Day-Lewis will be much ballyhooed, and deservedly so, but I want to take a moment to shoutout to Lesley Manville. Both pillar and fulcrum, Manville plays her part with such effortless poise, she is low-key the MVP of this film. Though the story does belong to Alma and Reynolds, and this is where the concept of bespoke dressmaking warms me as narrative *ahem* thread.
“You can sew almost anything into the canvas of a coat,” is a line used in the trailer and spoken early in the film by Reynolds, and have you ever considered the internal life of a piece of clothing? We place a premium on the exterior, but if you consider the sourcing of things as ubiquitous as thread to more elegant pieces like a bolt of 17th-century Polish lace mentioned in the film, there is a far-ranging experience inside each article of clothing.
Consider your tracks of stitches, the nonsense of your particular seams, the odd shape of your neckline. Each element of a piece of clothing—independent of the other—is a kind of cacophony, but when assembled through attention and effort, something remarkable emerges, a fit for no one other than you. This notion of fit, no matter how unexpected, therein lies the touching hope at the core of Anderson's work. Save Daniel Plainview who is as feckless as American capitalism, Anderson loves to at least launch a trajectory of redemption for his characters. And for the once enfant terrible who is now husband and father to four children, perhaps this is the personal message sewn within Phantom Thread. Your fit, in defiance of all logic and convention, is out there.
—Monte Monreal
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