Review: "There Will Be Blood"

There will never be a perfect film.
That is the conclusion I come to after watching “There Will Be Blood.”
This is the cinematic equivalent of an A-minus or (to put it classically) Icarus: A soaring achievement that becomes so good, its failures shine ever so brightly under the light of critique.
In this case, our Daedalus — that expert inventor of images in Greek lore who fathered Icarus — is Paul Thomas Anderson.
Anderson’s trademark large-ensemble cast is pared down in this character study of oilman Daniel Plainview, portrayed with otherworldly vigor by Daniel Day-Lewis.
Witnessing Day-Lewisí performance (For which I am at a loss of words to define — ‘explosive’ is too tame) must be somewhat akin to watching the testing of a nuclear weapon.
Plainview is greed, ego, capitalism, America unleashed on all who cross his path — he is a destroyer of worlds, yet Anderson and Day-Lewis make sure he at least has the appearance of a good-natured man who looks to do well for himself and his family.
It’s an act, just like our quiet introduction to this bombastic character at the film’s beginning: Plainview says nothing while mining for silver alone, a maverick from start to finish.
Later, Plainview takes a fallen colleague’s son under his wing, further luring our minds into believing him when he recites his line about being a family business and caring about his people whilst pitching his services to townsfolk in search of someone to deal with their big, black, sticky problem while simultaneously making them rich.
Plainview’s story intersects with plenty others, none of which are developed enough to matter much at all at the expense of keeping the film under a three-hour running time.
Plainview’s main antagonist is the youthful preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano, “Little Miss Sunshine”), whose Church of the Third Revelation stands to gain from Plainview’s drilling in the surrounding community. Daniel is a man of money while Eli, deep down, is a man of money disguising himself as a man of the cloth. You can see how this may cause some strife.
Plainview and Sunday go back and forth in their protracted exchanges of arguments and humiliation. The most theatrical barrage in this warring of men (save for the ending, which I shall not divulge) sees Daniel being baptized and brought into the fold at Eli’s church to secure a business deal, The slapstick humor and bombast of Eli is not nearly as humorous as Plainview’s response, but each requires the other to be truly appreciated.
The action may not speak louder than the words in “There Will Be Blood,” but Anderson gives us a number of indelible scenes shot to near-perfection: The well explosion, with all its mess and fiery destruction, is breathtaking to see.
To match these brilliant images, Anderson has Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood’s eclectic score panging throughout the film. Some may find it avant-garde, others genius — I enjoyed nearly every second of it.
Audiences for “There Will Be Blood” will generally fall into two categories once the final credits roll — those that see it as a new American classic, and those unready to crown it due its final act.
That’s not to say there isn’t much to debate during the first two hours of the film ñmuch of what makes the film one of the best of this decade is witnessed before we learn the fates of the main characters. But how one deals with the denouement will tell whether this is a surefire masterpiece deserving of a Best Picture Oscar, or just another very good film helmed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Bottom line: Daniel Day-Lewis deserves the Oscar for Best Actor for his portrayal of Plainview. The film deserves more than its fair share of consideration when it comes time to select the Academy Award winners for Best Picture, Cinematography and Adapted Screenplay. But like the New England Patriots, nobody’s perfect — but that won’t stop me from enjoying all the good things about “There Will Be Blood” for years to come.