There Will Be Blood Movie Review

There Will Be Blood tells the story of Daniel Plainview, an oil man at the turn of the 19th century who, in all his extremely competitive and capitalistic nature, becomes the embodiment of evil as the life he meticulously built begins to erode. Daniel Day-Lewis stars, Paul Dano co-stars, and Paul Thomas Anderson directs in this epic character study with 8 Academy Award nominations.

In my opinion, this is the 3rd best film of the year, behind No Country for Old Men and Juno. That being said, I thought it was good, but honestly, I don't think it would have received as much acclaim if Daniel Day-Lewis wasn't in it. He really carried this film, more than I've seen anyone carry a movie ever I think. It reminds me of On the Waterfront in that Day-Lewis was the only one really pulling you into the movie much like Brando did. I think On the Waterfront was a better movie, but still, can you name the other characters in that movie? Did you even care about them? Only if Brando wanted you to, and that's how I think this movie went. Maybe there are some better examples out there that I just can't think of off the top of my head.

Day-Lewis carried this film with a phenomenal performance. It was amazing to watch this man work that character so perfectly. He's great in everything he does, and while I haven't seen all the films he's been in, I'd be willing to bet this was his best performance yet. The way he crafted this character into such an awful, greedy, selfish competitor that would literally do anything to succeed and intimidate, but force you to love him at the same time was brilliant. I thought it was interesting that, as much as you try to hate him because he's doing such awful things, you end up rooting for him in a sort of sadistic way. When he's going crazy, kind of loosing his mind to all of this, you enjoy watching it. It's almost like rooting for Javier Bardem in No Country, but to a greater degree. That whole exchange with the two Standard Oil men was great, and when the whole "I'll come to your house at night and slit your throat" line came out, you couldn't help but laugh even though it was awful and unnecessary for him to respond that way.

On that note, I loved all the dialogue in this movie, especially anything that came out of Day-Lewis' mouth. It was fun to follow and well written. I'm not sure how much of that can be attributed to the book and how much to the movie, but it was good either way. Daniel Day-Lewis' whole performance, from the bottom of the oil well at the beginning to his last line in the bowling alley in the end, it was masterful, and hands down worthy of the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Day-Lewis aside, as much as I thought the movie lived and died with his performance, I was impressed with the direction. Very impressed actually. The movie was beautiful to look at, and the juxtaposition of bright landscape shots and dark, close-up shots was stunning. The way he told so much of the story through visual cues just added to the depth that the exposition set up.

The story was entertaining enough, but really went all over the place. However, one of the main themes I found was Plainview's relationship with his son. It seemed as though, throughout the first two thirds of the movie, his son was his driving force. Sure he was competitive and a greedy business man, but his son was his crutch. But after his accident, it's almost like Plainview just gives up on him, and I didn't like how easy that seemed to be for him. So maybe it was a furthering of the character's morality, malice, or true priorities. Whatever it was, it seemed to be contradicted by the fact that he starts to go crazy from that point on. Maybe that was when he reached his boiling point. It changed him so much that the scene with his son grown up is hard to watch. He's just so unforgivingly evil that you, for the first time, begin to root against him a little. And maybe I'm missing something here, but all those dots just didn't connect in my head, so when it was all over, I was still puzzled about it.

The last thing that I want to say is that I really didn't like Paul Dano in this movie. He played the role of two twin brothers, though the film focuses on only one of them, and I think he was just the wrong guy to play that part. I liked the character, on paper, but Paul Dano just didn't do it for me. Each church scene where he's actually preaching seems very forced and unauthentic, and it seemed like there was this deep commitment to something we were supposed to feel from him, maybe religion, maybe money, whatever, but I didn't get whatever it was. He was like the antithesis of Day-Lewis' great performance.

Overall, it was a slow moving but very enjoyable film about the rise and fall of a self-made oil man. The performance Daniel Day-Lewis brings to this movie is more epic than the movie itself, but is far from the only shining part about it. It deserves the nominations that it got, and it will be interesting to see how it turns out. Daniel Day-Lewis for Best Actor? Undeniably. I think this is one of the best character studies in a long time, thanks to Day-Lewis' ability to create a layered character and fully flesh out the complexities. But Best Picture? I don't think so.

On the Reganometer, I give There Will Be Blood a 9 out of 10.

Note: After wrestling with the rating for 3 days, I finally settled.