🎬 [WRITING AND REVIEW] Phantom Thread: Exquisite and subtly twisted
Spoilers ahead. 🚫
Hello guys. Glad I can read you all again. ⚔
I took a little rest from the world and start trying to find some film that would really shock me from the inside, whether it was at acting or story aspects while others may have not been as clear as strengthened as the other two were. I didn't care. Then I came across deliberately with 2017's Phantom Thread (a very misleading title) and started watching it in a rare cold and rainy late afternoon which made the experience of it even more memorable.
📽 A very quick sinopsis so you can get interested: It's the story of a self-absorbed and respected dressmaker called Reynolds Woodcock, who transmit confidence wherever he stands, and leads, along with his sister Cyril, a British Fashion Dressing House (ala Coco Chanel's), who knows a girl that becomes his muse: Alma, which soon starts to dislocate his personal and professional life since he considers himself an everlasting bachelor, even though he's had many women in his life, Reynolds at first treats her like the other many and unimportant girls to confirm his importance.
To break a bit of a reiterative writing model, here I will make a list of 10 reasons why you should spend time seeing this film which I had considered pivotal:
The director: Paul Thomas Anderson is one hell of a serious filmmaker. Nothing from him ever comes rotten and unoriginal, his films excel in writing and technique, and he's one of the most prominent filmmakers today. Just go and watch Magnolia or his first Day-Lewis collab There Will Be Blood, they all have their own personality and have very groundbreaking stories.
Daniel Day-Lewis is in it. He's the most crazy of the Method-Acting league.
It's a period piece and it's flawless costume design plus its opaque and well driven photography will make you wish it could be longer than it is, just for the visuals.
The costume scenario is not the main character. Love is the main character in this flick, love in a context where it is impossible and suffocating to have a connection with someone, even if it seems to be convoluted and repellent how Reynolds and Alma develop their bond, and less than convenient for their own sake.
It's a very complex love story that encompass defense mechanisms in a relationship and how it can become dangerous and take the shape of a cycle that spawns loneliness and routine.
Equally, Vicky Krieps , the actress who plays Alma, and acclaimed stage actress Lesley Manville, are at the top of their game. Alma isn't just a fragile character who happens to be in a situation where everybody seems to have a voice but herself, and Cyril, Reynolds' sister has such a cool and direct personality.
It is a very intense experience, a back and forth game between little things that mean lots of harm, attention or ordeal in a relationship. Attrezzo is not wasted here.
Crazy and fancy 50's British accent.
The music , Jonny Greenwood's melancholic mid-30's era score, lending an entirety from Classical Music and climaxes the key moments of Reynolds and Alma in the process of change.
It's a slow paced film and a lot of the Reynolds and Alma's relationship is answered and expressed through silence. Of course there is some voice-over diegetic narration through the film that serves to fill and intensify insights. It's not a regular, chep-thrills type of film.
A lil' bonus:
- Love's not romanticized here. You'll love to hate its characters and then you'll hate to love them.
✂ It's an exploration of love and resistance, a movie that says a whole world of undetonated confessions through the characters' behaviour more than their words or own sincerity, particularly Daniel Day Lewis' part of Reynolds, it speaks tons of parallelisms to people in a relationship, where commitment is a hard word sometimes.
Despite the couple's obvious age gap, things are very relative for both, sentimentally speaking, and as Reynolds advocate for his own emancipation to put passion into his craft throughout the film, Alma, -and the audience- knows it is merely a facade that hides a strong need of caring. It is delicate in its language and overall a visual feast that puts us on a little slice of the world of High Couture and modelling.
The title comes from a habit Reynolds developed into his dresses by hiding messages in their fabric, messages that reinforces the disparity of his actions. There is a lot of beautiful scenes in this film. You could pick a favorite easily.
Appreciate your readings 👁🗨 Stay safe and healthy wherever you shall or not shall go 😷