Phantom Thread (2017) [Blu-ray]
Drama | Romance

Set in 1950's London, Reynolds Woodcock is a renowned dressmaker whose fastidious life is disrupted by a young, strong-willed woman, Alma, who becomes his muse and lover.

Storyline: Set in the glamour of 1950s post-war London, renowned dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) are at the center of British fashion, dressing royalty, movie stars, heiresses, socialites, debutants, and dames with the distinct style of The House of Woodcock. Women come and go through Woodcock's life, providing the confirmed bachelor with inspiration and companionship, until he comes across a young, strong-willed woman, Alma (Vicky Krieps), who soon becomes a fixture in his life as his muse and lover. Once controlled and planned, he finds his carefully tailored life disrupted by love. Written by Focus Features

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman, March 31, 2018 Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread is a story of eccentricity, idiosyncrasy, routine, and the prospects of love upsetting one man's settled, strict ways. It's the tale of a man, a master of his craft, who has mastered his life but in such a rigid, precise, exacting way that he cannot alter it, even for matters of the heart. It's a fascinatingly detailed, often intense, and superbly acted film that builds towards and ending that's at once absurd and irrational but at the same time very much grounded and appropriate as a final evolutionary step in one of the most bizarre yet captivating romances ever committed to film.

Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) lives a life as structured, precise, fashionable, and lavish as the clothes he designs. He is a man who is superbly talented, a dressmaker known far and wide as the finest at his craft, a master whose designs bring joy to those who wear them and, as he relishes his precision and skill and thrives in his routine, to himself. One day, he meets a slender, alluring waitress named Alma (Vicky Krieps) to whom he is immediately drawn, and she to him. The two enjoy a mutual attraction, and as Reynolds accentuates her beauty with his clothes, draping her in fabrics with a sensual overtone, she melts into the moment. But the illusion is broken when Reynolds' sister, a cold and distant woman named Cyril (Lesley Manville) on whom Reynolds relies to keep his strict life in Swiss watch precision time, arrives to aid in the measurements, turning a romantic moment into a cold evening at work. Their relationship is defined by his distance and necessary adherence to routine and strict control of his environment. He finds her more off putting than he does lovely, at least in how he verbalizes himself in her presence. Whether the act of buttering her bread or bringing him late-night tea, her intrusions into his space threaten their relationship. But Alma is determined to make it work, going to great, and dangerous, lengths to put Reynolds into a vulnerable position in which she can properly demonstrate her love for him with his guard down.

Phantom thread may be described as a movie about obsession. The obsession comes from two sides, which clash. On one side is Reynolds, who is a slave to his structure. On the other is Alma, who is determined to break Reynolds free of his routine and see him see the love she has for him. Both of them forcefully will their ways on the other. Reynolds verbally chastises Alma every time she stands in his way, whether innocently and inadvertantly disrupting his ways or willfully forcing him to succumb and come to a point where he absolutely needs her. To speak of how she does so would be to spoil the film, but suffice it to say she undertakes extreme measures to break an extreme man. Whether it will work is the question, and whether the audience will accept the resolution is another entirely, but the movie is one of compromise, no matter how extreme the requirements to do so may be, or may become.

Characters are very well crafted. Reynolds is a confident man in himself, in his wants, and in his abilities as a dressmaker. He is careful, precise, adheres to routine, and his unflinchingly straight path all ensure he's on-point for every step of the dress making process. He craves attention, high society, and demands that the world bend to his every whim, spoken or unspoken, known or implied. Alma has lived a much less glamorous life, one of distance from all those things Reynolds takes for granted. She lacks confidence but suddenly feels important as the centerpiece of Reynolds' life, however fleeting those moments may be. She is a common girl who suddenly finds herself in the world of glamor, wearing exquisite clothes, coming to appreciate her body type, but the warmth and romance quickly fade when Reynolds, carefully building a dress to suit her, turns the moment from almost arrousingly sexual to cold and distant when his sister enters the room, sizes Alma up, and the quasi-lovemaking session turns into another day at the office for a man who finds more pleasure with a measuring tape in his hand rather than a woman's warmth against his body.

Vicky Krieps is superb as Alma. She doesn't overshadow Day-Lewis, but she's the perfect compliment and certainly reaches nearly his level. She's supple, flattering, and delicate, at first, but her transition into a more authoritative figure who still projects a modesty and subservience but who truly takes command of her environment by film's end makes for a startling, albeit very finely precise, transformation. She's capable of remarkable transformations even within the same scene or even shot. At several points her cheerfulness becomes a dourness and her arousal grows instantly cold. It's in how she handles those ever-evolving emotions, as Reynolds gives her reason to superficially and inwardly change and develop, that makes the character so appealing. Day-Lewis, in what is being reported as his final role, devours the material as only he can, selling not simply his abilities as a dressmaker but his rigidity in structure and schedule so well. He shows hints of a warmness, but the cold exterior and insistence on adhering to the status quo, no matter how far he may consequentially push Alma away, is always delivered with a chillingly bold and believable cadence.

Phantom Thread is a curious but delightfully dark tale of obsession from two opposing viewpoints. It's careful, precise, strange, and engaging all at once. And sadly in contemporary cinema, Phantom Thread is an anomaly. It's not concerned with speed or humor, flash or dazzle. It's cinema as art in a traditional sense, a perfectly acted dual character study, a finely crafted tale of intimate extremes and how love can, or cannot, mold those who feel it. It's an exquisite picture, as smartly crafted as its lead is capable of building the perfect dress. One could not ask for a better performance from Daniel Day-Lewis in what is being widely reported as his final role. Universal's Blu-ray, releasing about a month ahead of its UHD counterpart, offers smart and complimentary 1080p picture, most assuredly the same DTS:X Master Audio soundtrack that will accompany the UHD, and several extras, including a quick but engaging camera test reel with Paul Thomas Anderson commentary. Very highly recommended.

[CSW] -3.8- This film has no depth to it; or so I thought for the first half. The film starts out looking like a familiar tale of upper cast domineering male genius with a slightly lower cast waitress as his muse. Even with the superb cast I was expecting a Pygmalion / My Fair Lady plot. But I was wrong. It turned out to have an intriguing plot, layered with elements of psychological tension and relational dynamics far beyond my expectations. Production design, sets, and costumes were all well done, and you truly got the sense of a fashion designer's genius. And like most genius there was a down side. By the final third of the movie this film will perform the equivalent of sitting you down, confirming just how immense your enjoyment of it has been so far, and then asking you to summon all the goodwill you possess so as to go along with what's to come next. Make no mistake, from this point on the individual performances will continue to be as flawless - flawless - as they have been from the start, and the settings -- sumptuous. But this will also be the end of your effortless immersion into the story, and for the remainder of the film the questions like "where/why they are they going with that??" will be very much on your mind. So take the first two thirds of the film as beautiful setup for the final third.
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While the film starts out looking like a familiar tale of domineering male genius, it ultimately flips those expectations on their head. Alma vies for power and ultimately achieves it - through some rather unexpected (and twisted) means. There were no boundaries between the two of them upon their initial meeting. In any relationship, if there aren't boundaries set in the very beginning in terms of how you expect to be treated, oftentimes the relationship can kind of go off the rails. Reynolds is constantly referencing his mother, even hallucinating her, and obviously he has this really deep desire to be mothered by Alma that we see come out near the end. Reynolds' work is about precision and about having complete and total control, almost to the point where he couldn't stop himself. What he really was drawn to in the end with Alma is that she had to force him to stop. I think that he felt some relief that ultimately someone would go toe-to-toe with him and let him know that he needed to slow down or force him to slow down. The poisoning had a weird sort of BDSM quality to it that she is really dominating him. Despite this extreme situation you will notice that both of them attempted to compromise. I think she compromised up front, but in the end he compromised a bit more as well and they kind of were able to meet each other in the middle.

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