directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville
What to say about Phantom Thread. Hmmmm...
Well, it seems that I have a thing for director Paul Thomas Anderson, because in his films you are not going to get a standard narrative, and I do like being surprised. With his films you are going to get a thought-provoking, confronting, unusual film experience that makes you examine in depth the often-illogical and sometime unpleasant ways that being human asserts itself. Consider The Master, Inherent Vice, Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood. These films offer unique narratives about the fraught relationships between some extremely complicated -- OK, weird -- people.
On its surface, Phantom Thread is about a successful, meticulous, and insular man and the way in which love disrupts his very ordered life.
Looked at from another angle, the film is about a war of wills between an older man and a very determined young woman who will not be discarded or dismissed. (I was reminded of Glenn Close's plaintive statement from Fatal Attraction some 30 years ago: "I'm not going to be ignored, Dan.")
This is about a grown man with severe, unacknowledged Mommy issues, who strikes an unusual psychological bargain that allows him to crawl, helpless, into the nurturing arms of a strong female from time to time.
At its heart, the film is about what truly shapes a relationship, about the totally unseen and unsuspected reality of reciprocal need and desire that draws two people into a partnership, i.e. the phantom thread sewn through the fabric of two people's lives that stitches them irrevocably together. When this thread is revealed toward the end of the film, we the viewers are aghast. Particularly because the film itself is so mannered, so elegant, so well composed and measured, so politely English, and the bargain struck between the couple at the center of the story seems almost macabre.
The main character, Reynolds Woodcock (played by the marvelous Daniel Day-Lewis), is a highly regarded British couturier who designs and constructs dresses for a fashionable 1950s clientele that includes countesses, princesses, society dames, and the like. Fussy, eccentric, demanding, rich, and wholly self-involved, Reynolds trusts only his sister and business partner, the equally dour and demanding Cyril (a perfect Lesley Manville), whose every move caters to the personal whims and professional needs of her brother. Their business occupies an impeccable and fashionable London townhouse, staffed by a bevy of loyal seamstresses and patternmakers and, on occasion, by Reynolds' lover of the moment, a young woman who is usually fired and ushered out by Cyril.
At an English seaside hotel restaurant, Reynolds acquires a lovely young waitress, Alma (a Mona Lisa-like Vicky Krieps), who becomes new lover and muse. He flatters her, measures her for new gowns, shares his memories of his late mother, who inspired him to sew, and ultimately brings her to the townhouse and installs her as part of the household. Except that Alma, who is feisty, opinionated, and in love, doesn't quite fit into the be-seen-but-not-heard role Reynolds demands. Though he shares with her the secrets of his craft, and the fact that messages or coins can be sewn into the lining of a garment, and learns that Alma truly recognizes the creative sanctity of his work, Reynolds is mostly a cold customer.
After some unpleasant confrontations between the patronizing and wholly selfish Reynolds and a hurt Alma, the young woman decides to take drastic action to get Reynolds to "settle down" and return to a state of vulnerability and tenderness she knows he is capable of, a state in which Reynolds recognizes and affirms his love of Alma. Soon Reynolds becomes ill, and Alma locks everyone else out, including Cyril, to nurse him back to health. After this episode, Reynolds asks Alma to marry him, and Alma accepts.
But within months, Reynolds regrets the marriage, becomes annoyed with everything Alma does, cannot concentrate on work, becomes verbally abusive to Alma, and begs Cyril to help him correct the enormous "mistake" that he's made. Alma, overhearing Reynolds' fitful complaints to his sister, again takes matters into her own hands to get Reynolds to "settle down." It is in the final moments of the film when we learn that Reynolds is not only aware of Alma's plans, but condones them.
The film's story is framed by Alma explaining to a young doctor how and why her relationship with Reynolds continues to work. But the nature of this bargain is beyond the doctor's -- and our -- ability to comprehend.
Should you see it? Sure. If you're a fan of Day-Lewis, great filmmaking, and scratch-your-head endings. But the truth is, more than one relationship has a funky phantom thread running through it. And it should by all means remain hidden from view.
Random Notes:
* The impeccable cinematography and attention to sartorial splendor reminded me in some ways of fashion designer/film director Tom Ford's directorial debut, 2009's A Single Man.
* The film's score -- combining lush composed music by Jonny Greenwood with a mix of classical pieces and period big band melodies -- enhances the overall mood of the piece as something elevated and atmospheric, but also tense and timeless.
* The scenes of industry within Woodcock's townhouse reminded me of a more personal memory, of what it's like to go to work daily in a historic home. The soundscape is very different from working in an office environment, where you often have carpeting, glass, and other expanses of man-made and modern materials, including elevators. I was reminded that as a teenager, in the late 1970s, I worked as a program assistant at New York's International Center of Photography, which was then housed in New York City's historic Willard D. Straight House, a four-story Georgian-style mansion on Fifth Avenue and 94th Street (the museum and school have since moved and expanded to several locations). I was captured by the sounds of the door hinges creaking, the glass door knobs, the ringing of footsteps along the parquet floors, the climbing to various high-ceilinged offices along the grand wooden staircases in a building that had been constructed as the home of a rich New Yorker some 70 years earlier.
* Love and politics make for strange bedfellows.
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*all photos screenshots
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