Phantom Thread ***** (2017, Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville) – Movie Review

Phantom Thread (2017) is an incredibly bold and brave and beautiful film from wayward auteur (I mean that nicely) Paul Thomas Anderson. Boy, it is one heck of a weird movie! It starts with echoes of Hitchcock’s Rebecca, becomes a Fifties London fashion show and an English heritage movie – a bit Upstairs Downstairs, without the Downstairs – and ends up as a spaced-out black comedy chiller with echoes of Hitchcock’s Suspicion.

It is very polished, very stylish and quite brilliant. Did I also mention that, against all expectations, it is also most amusing, and actually often very funny? That’s a nice trick if you can pull it off, and Anderson does.

Daniel Day-Lewis starts by being really mannered and annoying, and then gets really great in the role of fussy posh frock designer Reynolds Woodcock, who, it turns out, is mannered and annoying. That is the role. Day-Lewis is perfect, and perfectly matched by Vicky Krieps as his alluring young lover, frocks muse and personal nemesis, Alma, a dab hand with cooking mushrooms and other devilish delights, and by Lesley Manville as his strong-willed sister Cyril. All three actors are absolutely tremendous, with Manville a scene-stealing knockout. Talking Hitchcock, the heroine here, if that is the word, shares her name with Hitchcock’s wife, Alma.

Reynolds Woodcock needs to be given a wide berth – he loves his dead mum and makes dresses – very Norman Bates in Psycho – but not such a wide berth as Alma needs. These two are just made for each other, at least in a place called hell. ‘If you want to have a staring contest with me, you will lose.’ That is Alma to Reynolds. How scary is that? And that is in their good times together!

Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson is just on inspired form in both capacities, as well as being his own stylish director of photography and adventurous producer.

Incidentally, the big budget shows on screen in a gorgeously handsome movie, mostly shot on English locations, but also including a honeymoon side trip to Switzerland. It really is dressed to kill. The $35 million production is Anderson’s second-highest budgeted movie after Magnolia (1999), which cost $37 million. It is a very rare trip out of his native California for Anderson, though in 1996 he shot Hard Eight in Reno, Nevada. Phantom Thread shows he should get out more.

I’m guessing that Reynolds Woodcock is based on confirmed bachelor Norman Hartnell (1901 –1979), leading British fashion designer, best known for his work for the Royal Family ladies, with perhaps a touch of the Cecil Beatons. It is fertile ground. There is a movie connection too. Hartnell designed costumes for many films and was the second cousin of the original Doctor Who, William Hartnell. Indeed, Reynolds Woodcock describes himself as a ‘confirmed bachelor’.

We know we are in for an important occasion because the only opening credits are for the production company logos (Annapurna Pictures, Focus Features, Ghoulardi Film Company and Perfect World Pictures) and the film’s title.

Day-Lewis and Anderson previously made the very different There Will Be Blood (2007) together.

Phantom Thread has six Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Directing, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress (Manville), Best Original Score (Jonny Greenwood), and Best Costume Design (Mark Bridges).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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