‘Phantom Thread’ proves rich showcase for Daniel Day-Lewis.
With echoes of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rebecca” and lavish Max Ophüls productions such as “LolaMontès,” writer and director Paul Thomas Anderson’s “PhantomThread” spins a tale about an obsessive fashion designer and his muse into a suspenseful and often funny parlor drama.
Anderson is revered for his grand screen meditations on the Americanman (“Boogie Nights,” “There Will Be Blood,” “The Master”). But here, and perhaps to the dismay of some of his fans, he both narrows and redirects his gaze elsewhere — to a single couture house in 1950s London and the very particular man behind the designs, Reynolds Woodcock.
The great Daniel Day-Lewis, in what reportedly is his final film performance, plays
Woodcock as a soft- spoken dandy whose precise rules and polished look thinly veil his volatile artist’s temperament. We’ve seen this kind of thing before — a celebrated artist who cannot stomach anything outside his routine, from ugliness to general unpleasantries and everything in between. But it is something special and distinct in the hands of DayLewis, who is perhaps the only working actor perfect and exacting enough to play someone so perfect and exacting.
Woodcock’s nature is just one of the reasons why he has sailed past middle age and has not only nevermarried but also will proudly tell a woman on a first date that he is a “confirmed” and “incurable” bachelor. The audience sees Woodcock and his sister Cyril (LesleyManville), who runs the business side of the House of Woodcock, dispose of a pretty woman early on for the crime of wanting his attention (and disrupting breakfast by offering him an unwanted pastry).
So we’re not expecting anything different when he takes a shine to Alma (Vicky Krieps), awaitress at a restaurant in the country whom he teases and flirts with by ordering an excessively large breakfast for just himself and grinning widely at his next prey. The lanky Alma, who seems shy and awkward bumping into chairs and blushing at the sight of Woodcock, smiles, plays along and gladly accepts his dinner invitation — and soon an invitation to come back to London to model for him.
But this is not “Funny Face” or “My Fair Lady” or “Pretty Woman” or any number of “ugly”-duckling- turns-to-swanwith the help of a great man stories. It’s not even really about fashion (althoughMark Bridges’ costumes are indeed sumptuous). It’s a story of relationships and power.
Alma, we discover, is not like the other girls even if she fits themold. (Cyril tells her plainly that she has the perfect shape — “He likes them with a little belly”). She has a bite andwill push back on some things and concede on others. “He’s too fussy,” she says defiantly after a disastrous breakfast whereWoodcock storms off because she’s buttering her toast too loudly, only later to acquiesce to the librarylike silence he prefers in the morning. Ultimately, it seems, Alma is testing the waters in hopes of carving out her own unique relationship with Woodcock.
Why Alma loves this petulant genius is something the film doesn’t really make any effort to explain. It’s just a fact, an occasionally infuriating one. All this takes a somewhat surreal twist halfway through, but it’s intriguing enough to carry us to the end of the film.
Even in the story’s confined setting, Anderson gives the moments and characters roomto breathe in this silky-smooth film, which lulls viewers before taking them on an unexpected ride in the third act.
Giving a beautifully subtle performance, Krieps holds her own with DayLewis, and in some cases even outshines him — a fitting parallel to her character. Manville, too, is superb as Cyril — a Mrs. Danvers type, without the sinister angle.
Like all of Anderson’s work, “Phantom Thread” is beautiful and intriguing, but it’s also a filmthat is not unlike its central character — easy to respect and admire, but nearly impossible to fully love.