Oscar Race #3: Phantom Thread - A Painfully Slow Strange Romance
I might be one of the few audience members who didn't like this film. The first 3/4 of the film was painfully slow and didn't seem to go anywhere. The last fourth of the film made no sense at all and when it finally did, it seemed to be strangest climax ever. This film had the pacing of a snail trying to crawl as fast as it can from a horrific script. The whole movie had anticipated but failed plot twists. It wanted to make everything seem like a bigger deal than it actually is. There are words on the inside of dresses? When the words were shown, I thought it was going to be a foreshadow or major plot twist. I'm sadly mistaken and in the end, it took me awhile to get the deeper meaning. This whole film plays with your mind to the point of confusion and then explains itself secretively so you can appreciate it long after you have seen this film. I wanted to like this film and it may need another viewing for me but first time through, I'm not impressed.
The story is set in the 1950's, London. It follows Reynolds Woodcock, an admired dressmaker whose meticulous life is disrupted by a young and determined woman named Alma. She later becomes one of his favorite woman to dress and their love disturbs Reynold's perfectly laid out day to day life. It's a clever story of what love can do to a perfectionist of an artist. However, the way it's set up took so long to get to that point. 2 hours and 10 minutes could have been reduced to 1 hour and 45 minutes. The problem with this movie for me was that the scenery and feel of the film tried to replace its slow pacing and story but it couldn't. Not even the great Daniel Day-Lewis can save us. The two great things about this film would be the actors and the costumes. Daniel Day-Lewis shouldn't retire with this film as his last one but he and his co-star, Vicky Krieps, made this film bearable. Even Lesley Manville as his sister made this watchable. Three of them acting is a real treat. They were all very engaged in their characters and made the audience feel sorry for these very tragic characters. The other good factor were the costumes. They were beautiful, as expected since this film is about a dressmaker. Mark Bridges used vibrant colors to really fill the screen with beauty. The different careful details of the materials was very pleasing to the eye. The score was filled with dark classical numbers, fading in and out at random times. The production design, however, was beautiful. The whole look of the film was very colorful and lively. Overall, this film was a disappointment and my first Paul Thomas Anderson film experience was sadly a waste of time.
My Rating: 6.5/10