i wrote this back in february and since i've had requests for it...here
There Will Be Blood seems to follow the new cinematic craze of long silences, small hints of a soundtrack and cinematography that is reminiscent of early film noir classics. This, Paul Thomas Anderson accomplishes flawlessly and unlike No Country For Old Men you won’t find yourself glancing at your watch to check the time. Based on Upton Sinclair’s Oil!, There Will Be Blood takes us from the American dream to an American nightmare. It is a film that tells the classic story of greed, envy, and damnation in biblical proportions. We meet Daniel Plainview who finds his personal heaven and hell in an Old Testament town full of New Testament evangelicalism. His only two enemies, mankind and God, never let him rest. Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance leaves nothing for the asking as the man who holds competition at his breast.
With a tangle of relationships there is enough plot aside from murderous greed to keep the story going. The relationships circle around fathers, sons, and brothers with little on-screen time for women so don’t look for any romance. There aren’t unrealistic ideals here.
However, the bond between Plainview and H.W. (Dillon Freasier) raises the stakes enough to give the emotional strength required.
We see Plainview and are constantly reminded by brimstone and flame, created by oil wells, of where he stands in this world.
The only note to make is Paul Dano’s characters, Eli and Paul Sunday, who are in fact brothers but it confuses some thinking that they are in fact the same person. Originally Dano was only cast as Paul but when the original actor for Eli fell through Dano was brought in. It was too late to reshoot the scene with Paul Sunday so they were made twins. The fact that Dano so thoroughly convinces us of Eli’s psychopathic nature is what primarily convinces us that they could be one in the same.
While initially the film may seem slow just wait, let it engulf you and you will sucked right in like Eli’s followers at a sermon. Sound is crucial, even in its absence but when the soundtrack comes int it is nothing less than perfect. Let Day-Lewis’ reverberating tone pull you in with its charming wolfish perversity. You will follow him as he reaches Little Boston and finds a whole sea waiting just for this oilman. It seems so easy until Eli Sunday throws Plainview’s second enemy, religion, on the doorstep with impish ferocity.
H.W., the infant he adopts when the boy’s father dies in Plainview’s first accident in an oil well. H.W. is the closest he gets to true love even if he does exploit H.W.’s boyish charm and family values. When H.W. goes deaf Plainview is heartbroken, but not openly, and never forgives himself as his once partner and companion becomes standoffish, suspicious, and jealous. The heartbreak lasts until the end, both that of Plainview and H.W. The chemistry between the actors brings that side to it when easily we could have forgotten Plainview’s love, which makes him human. That is why we love Plainview. Even if he seems a heartless killer, a ravenous miser, he is capable of love and to us that gives him light. It gives us more than just horrified fascination.
In the final scene Plainview takes final revenge on both man and God with a charge of blistering violence. With biblical exultation Plainview utters, “I’m finished.” It just about leaves you breathless.
Lovers of a sugar coated sweet story will hate this film. If you have no sense of adventure, don’t even bother. But then again, if you were looking for that you’d probably dislike me as well.
