Phantom Thread – 2017
Both critics and audiences alike seem to love this drama. It earned six Oscar nominations at the Academy Awards, winning for Best Costume Design. It has a ninety-one percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and a weighted average score of ninety out of one hundred on Metacritic, based on fifty-one critics. The film was praised for its directing by Paul Thomas Anderson, its score by Jonny Greenwood, and its leading performance by Daniel Day-Lewis, which, he has said, is the final film performance of his career. Apparently, he is retiring from acting. Overall, the film has been hailed as one of the best movies of 2017 by multiple publications and reviews.
Why, then, did I find it to be a slow, humorless, drama, the ending of which defied logic and credibility? What am I missing that everyone else seemed to love? Granted, I believe it was deserving of the one Oscar it took home, but considering the movie was about a couture fashion designer in 1954, I’d have been surprised if it had not been awarded that honor.
Having seen Day-Lewis in other films like 2007’s There Will Be Blood, and 2012’s Lincoln, in which he blew my socks off, I found his performance in Phantom Thread to be a little low-key. He wasn’t bad, by any means. He never is. But the roll itself just wasn’t terribly noteworthy. I also didn’t see how Anderson’s directing was anything more than average. Besides costume design, the only other part of the movie I’ll recognize as award-worthy was Greenwood’s score, which was beautiful, sophisticated, and dramatic, offering a perfect background for the stylistic feel of the narrative.
The movie is about the super high-class, elitist-level world of fictional fashion designer, Reynolds Woodcock, played by Day-Lewis. Now, before I go any further, I’m going to say that I’m getting a little tired of movies like 2014’s Whiplash, and 2010’s Black Swan, whose characters are supposed to be such artistic geniuses, that people would give their souls to be part of their lives, even though the geniuses in question treat nearly everyone around them as dirt beneath their shoes. Being the best musician, the best dancer, the best director, or the best fashion designer, does not give you the right to be an ass to anyone you please. But invariably, these eccentrics are put up with, or worse, forgiven, for behavior that would have anyone else labeled as a jerk. OK, I’ll get off my soapbox now.
Anyway, Reynolds is portrayed as a fashion god among men. He is assisted by his sister, Cyril, played by Leslie Manville. She has been managing his life long enough to know everything about him, his likes and dislikes, his routine, his quirks, his requirements, and his demands. Part of her job is to make sure that nothing disrupts his delicate creative sensibilities. But Reynolds’ life is thrown into disarray when he meets an average looking woman who has the perfect body measurements to become his next muse. She is Alma Elson, a country girl with a foreign accent, played by Vicky Krieps. When he finds her and dresses her, he makes her feel beautiful. She quickly falls in love with him, despite the fact that he is impatient, verbally demeaning, dismissive, and generally rude to her.
The two become lovers for a while, and when Alma decides that she wants more than to simply sit and wait for him to either love her, or grow tired of her and dismiss her, she takes matters into her own hands. Her solution is to deliberately sicken him with poisonous mushrooms. He becomes so ill, he fears he will die, and she personally cares for him until he recovers. When he is well, he has a renewed vigor for life and love. He proposes marriage to her, but after their vows are taken, he continues to treat her as he did before.
The film ends as Alma, once again, finds that she wants him to love her. She applies the same tactic as before, but this time he knows what she is doing. Inexplicably, he eats the poison mushrooms anyway, and then thanks her for knowing how to get him away from the soul-consuming toxicity of his work. Ah, being a god-like fashion genius is such a burden. Thank you for reminding me that I am human. More mushrooms, please! I’ll love you again when I stop throwing up and my fever goes down… And this is supposed to be a romantic drama!
Now, all that being said, I’ll fully admit that the gowns displayed in the movie were all pretty spectacular. We have Costume Designer Mark Bridges to thank for that. His designs were, in my uneducated opinion, absolutely gorgeous. I particularly loved the Princess’s wedding dress. And the first pink dress Reynolds made for Alma was lovely.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough for me. The movie was too slow, too self-important, and it was trying too desperately to be deep. Still, the performances, such as they were, were pretty good, and I especially liked the character of Cyril. Manville played her as so wonderfully cold and aloof. But on the whole, I just don’t understand what all the fuss was about.