Monday, January 14, 2008

Now Playing: There Will Be Blood

Holy Krikey.

Daniel Day-Lewis is just too amazing in There Will Be Blood - he gives my runaway favourite performance of the year. While many people think his character is absolutely irredeemable, I didn't find that so. For me, his humanity is wrapped up in his son and whenever he pushed H.W. away, he tended to veer from hard-nosed businessman to borderline sociopath. He's a self-made man in a cutthroat business - any weakness that is perceived of him can easily be translated into a weakness in his business acumen. There is one scene where he's with baby H.W. on the train: H.W. pulls at Daniel's moustache and Daniel just lets him with a slight tender smile. That's the Daniel Plainview he couldn't afford to let the world see. It was such a subtle scene. His brand of evil was so different from Javier Bardem's in NC4OM - the kind of volatile evil that surprised you every time, if only for the oceans of calm it seemed to disturb. Given the choice to wrangle between Chigurh and Plainview, I'd take Chigurh: with him, you know where you stand (and you always stand away from doorknobs); with Plainview, he can be your best friend or your worst nightmare and you never quite know what its going to be.
...Special mentions to Paul Dano whose bible-thumping was more than a little disturbing and to young Dillon Freasier who was a lovely counterpart to his "father".

The one thing I found quite distracting about the movie had to be the score. Let me make this clear: I LIKED the score (thank you Jonny Greenwood), I just didn't like how it was edited into the actual movie. It often seemed too loud and overwhelmed what was actually happening on screen. It also seemed to be unnecessary at other points - the actors were strong enough to build tension without having a buzzing oboe remind us that this is a tense moment: pay attention! Character development also seemed lacking, especially when it came to the motivations of certain actions. Twice a character did something I found completely shocking and no explanation followed.

Other than these two minor issues, this was an excellent, excellent movie. Like NC4OM and Gone Baby Gone, it's one that benefits from multiple viewings and a good meaty discussion afterwards. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

1 comment:

Lyla Lou said...

This is a movie I really wish I had seen in the theater instead of a tiny corner of my computer screen at work=(