I saw There Will Be Blood this weekend and I really… appreciated it. I know most movie reviews either gush or slander, I really can’t do either when it comes to Blood. I can’t say I really enjoyed it, I don’t think it is necessarily an enjoyable film, but that doesn’t stop it from being a remarkable movie.
If you haven’t heard this is the movie on everyone’s top ten lists, and it should be. Paul Thomas Anderson, who directed Boggie Nights and Magnolia, does a beautiful job on the script as well as creating an atmospheric mood that literally does not let you relax for two and a half hours. The film is based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, but from what I have heard it is a pretty loose interpretation so it is sort of inconsequential.
The movie is indisputably held up by Daniel Day Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a ruthless and plagued oil man in the early 20th century. He is captivating in the part and keeps the audience connected with the story for the entirety of the movie. The only caveat about Lewis in this role is that it sort reminded me of Bill the butcher from Gangs of New York. They are sort of similar characters in their lack of sanity, but at points Lewis can take an accent and character and shift it slightly towards cartoonish.
I also have to talk about Paul Dano as Eli Sunday. We first saw Dano in the so-overrated- I–cant-watch-it-anymore Little Miss Sunshine where he didn’t speak and he does a semi- 180 in Blood where he is so intense you feel like at any moment he is going to kill someone with his bare hands. I appreciate how he kept his role as an evangelical lunatic well below campy caricature.
The soundtrack is done by Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead and it is beautiful and awful and creepy as hell; which is to say fits the movie really well.
There is a nonlinear element to the story in There Will Be Blood which is interesting to me since it is an element I have seen in two other highly acclaimed movies in recent history Atonement and No Country For Old Men. This style of story telling has always been present in indie movies and so it is interesting that is bleeding over into the mainstream in such a prominent way.
Bottom lining it, even if you see There Will Be Blood and hate it as an experience; I hope you will realize what a cool and innovative mainstream movie it is, and why Daniel Day Lewis is so picky about the roles he takes.
If you haven’t heard this is the movie on everyone’s top ten lists, and it should be. Paul Thomas Anderson, who directed Boggie Nights and Magnolia, does a beautiful job on the script as well as creating an atmospheric mood that literally does not let you relax for two and a half hours. The film is based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, but from what I have heard it is a pretty loose interpretation so it is sort of inconsequential.
The movie is indisputably held up by Daniel Day Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a ruthless and plagued oil man in the early 20th century. He is captivating in the part and keeps the audience connected with the story for the entirety of the movie. The only caveat about Lewis in this role is that it sort reminded me of Bill the butcher from Gangs of New York. They are sort of similar characters in their lack of sanity, but at points Lewis can take an accent and character and shift it slightly towards cartoonish.
I also have to talk about Paul Dano as Eli Sunday. We first saw Dano in the so-overrated- I–cant-watch-it-anymore Little Miss Sunshine where he didn’t speak and he does a semi- 180 in Blood where he is so intense you feel like at any moment he is going to kill someone with his bare hands. I appreciate how he kept his role as an evangelical lunatic well below campy caricature.
The soundtrack is done by Johnny Greenwood from Radiohead and it is beautiful and awful and creepy as hell; which is to say fits the movie really well.
There is a nonlinear element to the story in There Will Be Blood which is interesting to me since it is an element I have seen in two other highly acclaimed movies in recent history Atonement and No Country For Old Men. This style of story telling has always been present in indie movies and so it is interesting that is bleeding over into the mainstream in such a prominent way.
Bottom lining it, even if you see There Will Be Blood and hate it as an experience; I hope you will realize what a cool and innovative mainstream movie it is, and why Daniel Day Lewis is so picky about the roles he takes.
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