Phantom Thread 2017
This movie is getting a lot of raves from critics, but not a lot of big awards so far. It’s about a British fashion designer in the 1950’s, mostly about his relationship with a pretty girl he is taken with when she waits on him at a restaurant. The movie has a lot going for it. Daniel Day-Lewis just disappears into this character, a hard working meticulous career bachelor (you get where I’m going, right?) who lives with his sister and misses his dead mother terribly. It is mostly a character study, but there is an interesting plot that kicks in towards the end. Daniel Day-Lewis is amazing and the actresses playing his sister and girlfriend are also very good. It was directed and written by Paul Thomas Anderson, so you have a lot of potential for writing and directing awards right there. And the music makes it like you are watching the movie with a chamber orchestra playing. It’s a beautiful well-crafted movie to watch, but it is odd and more than a little slow. It is more about these characters than about society, but the setting in the era of Princess Grace provides some additional charm. The gowns he designs seem a little chunky to me instead of breathtakingly beautiful. If he isn’t a genius, the movie doesn’t quite work, but his disdain for the word “chic” shows he may be a little behind the times.
Overall Phantom Thread is such a finely crafted movie that it is hard not to give it an A, but ultimately it seems kind of lightweight in a way, so maybe an A-. I could go lower maybe, but it really is enjoyable on a lot of different levels, even funny in a lot of ways.
Written: 21 Jan 2018
Owned on: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital