Review: Phantom Thread (2017)

* * * *
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville

Generally speaking, I'm not a person who thinks that spoilers matter. What happens is much less interesting to me than how it happens, particularly since plot twists tend to be so telegraphed anyway. I knew that there was some sort of twist to Phantom Thread but I didn't know what it was (and not for lack of trying, as the giddiness with which some reviews talked around the twist piqued my interest, but Movie Spoiler didn't have a write up for the film yet and Wikipedia's entry for it was still just a couple of sentences that only gave the basic premise). I'm glad that I didn't because in a million years I don't think I would have guessed that the plot would take the turn that it does until it was already veering into that other lane, and that realization that it was taking that turn (and then the turns that flowed out of that one) was one of the great pleasures of watching the movie. I think that Phantom Thread, a meticulously put together movie in every respect, is a film that can be enjoyed even if you go into it knowing where it's headed, but it's a lot more fun if you go into it cold. So if you're planning to see it, stop reading here, because spoilers lie ahead.

Review: Inherent Vice (2014)

* * * 1/2
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix

If I had to compare Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice to any other movie, it would be Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep. On the surface the two might not seem to have much in common, the former being a '70s set comic noir about a hippie P.I. who spends most of his time stoned, the latter being a classic '40s noir with an archetypal Bogart performance as P.I. Philip Marlowe; but the two films have a similar storytelling strategy, in that there are a lot of elements in both stories and none of them really matter. Like The Big Sleep, Inherent Vice has a plot that can be hard to follow, its many threads difficult to tease out from one another, and like The Big Sleep, not knowing exactly what's happening makes absolutely no difference when it comes to enjoying it because it's not actually about the story, but about the characters and the mood. Inherent Vice is a film about a vibe and it makes that feeling so palpable that even when you're lost in the haze of its narrative, there's still no place you'd rather be.

Partners in Crime: Anderson and Hoffman

Celebrating cinema's greatest collaborations



Paul Thomas Anderson and Philip Seymour Hoffman may not come as immediately to mind when thinking of successful director/actor partnerships as other pairings, but just because they've flown slightly under the radar (a result, perhaps, of two of their early efforts being very much "ensemble" pieces) doesn't mean that their work together hasn't been vitally important. With Anderson, Hoffman has enjoyed a series of diverse and interesting characters, and with Hoffman, Anderson has had the benefit of a consistently great character actor who can work across genres. Theirs may be a quieter, less flashy partnership than other director/actor pairings, but it's one of modern cinema's most fruitful.

Review: Punch Drunk Love (2002)

* * * 1/2
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson

Punch Drunk Love is an anomaly in writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's career. For one thing, it's about half the length of his other films (with the exception of Hard Eight). For another, it's imbued with the kind of quirky sensibility that feels more at home in the work of an Anderson contemporary like Spike Jonze. It's a fascinating little palate cleanser coming between the flashy, sprawling cast productions of Boogie Nights and Magnolia, and the more reserved and singularly focused There Will Be Blood and The Master. It's also an interesting take on star Adam Sandler's "angry man" persona.

Review: The Master (2012)

* * * Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams

The Master, Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film, is an ambitious, enigmatic, beautifully photographed, and sometimes brilliant piece of work. I feel like I should have liked it more, but as I left the theater my feelings were more akin to a shrug. Individual scenes in The Master are amazing but as a whole I found the film rather unaffecting. It is by no measure a bad movie. It's a movie I admire in many ways, but one which ultimately left me unmoved.