GownG for the count
It’s G’Day-Lewis, as actor calls this designer turn his last role
DANIEL Day-Lewis is one of the rare actors who really merits the old cliché: “I could watch him read the phone book.” “Phantom Thread,” the actor’s second collaboration with director Paul Thomas Anderson (after “There Will Be Blood”), isn’t quite that, but still had me asking a fundamental question: Why am I supposed to care about these awful people? At best, it’s a fairly enjoyable hate-watch of a farewell to DDL, charting the course of a twisted love affair between a real pill of a guy and a woman who inexplicably adores him.
Day-Lewis — who has said he is retiring from film — pours himself into the character of Reynolds Woodcock, an A-list fashion designer in mid-20thcentury London. He’s impeccably groomed, driven, obsessive and endlessly irritable. Alma (Vicky Krieps) is his latest muse, a humble country waitress he sweeps into his orbit, outfitting her with his fabulous gowns and impatiently shutting her down whenever she tries to become an equal partner in his life — an ambition made doubly challenging by the designer’s chilly, omnipresent sister and business partner, Cyril (Lesley Manville, whose disapproving glare is a thing of delicious perfection).
The relationship between Woodcock and Alma, who eventually marry, is a slow and somewhat excruciating burn. Day-Lewis delivers Woodcock’s bitchy lines with zest: “It’s as if you rode a horse across the room!” he snaps as Alma scrapes a butter knife audibly across toast. Krieps stews beautifully, her facial expressions suggesting Alma is as complicated on the inside as her husband is externally. The method she eventually devises for winning his heart is, for sure, a funny and kinky surprise. You root for the quiet Alma to bring this imperious man to heel, as you’re wondering how any woman, even his loyal, paid seamstresses, could stand to be around him for any time at all.
Director Anderson excels at or gets boggged down by detail, depending on your feelings about room decor. Put it this way: I’ve never written down the word “wallpaper” in my notes so many times in the course of a single film. Ballgowns swoosh, Jonny Greenwood’s score (the Radiohead guitarist also composed music for Anderson’s “There Will Be Blood” and other films) sweeps and soars. It’s all very gorgeous but leaves you feeling rather curdled inside — so, perhaps, it’s the ideal film for holiday curmudgeons.