300 Words on "Phantom Thread" (2017)

Why did I like Phantom Thread so much?

I guess the best place to start would be the powerhouse performance from Daniel Day-Lewis, who had me mesmerized whenever he was on screen. Even with the most minute of movements like sewing a piece of fabric – which as high-class dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock – Day-Lewis does a lot, he was able to imbue the action with so much meaning and gravity.

Giving a performance just as striking is Vicky Krieps as Alma, the object of Woodcock’s affections. Krieps delivers a nuanced, mannered performance which packs so much sublimating, dark emotions that when finally glimpsed, feel so incredibly justified.

The original screenplay written by director Paul Thomas Anderson is no less intriguing. Any viewer who expects an intricate, labyrinth-like story from Phantom Thread may come away feeling cheated, but the screenplay is layered and complex all-the-same. I often found myself wondering just where the story was going with no idea what was in store for these mesmerizing characters. Anderson’s screenplay is swathed in an intangible uneasiness and I found myself riveted by its strange – at times inexplicable – sense of foreboding.

Complimenting that mood is outstanding, lush cinematography which lovingly lingers on the colors and textures of fabrics in just the same way that Day-Lewis’s Woodcock surely would. And the score – seemingly one long symphony – composed by Johnny Greenwood is just as fitting.

I left the theatre unable to put into words my feelings for Phantom Thread and few movies are able to do that to me, but I now see clearly that I, not unlike the characters of the film, fell under the spell of Phantom Thread. A beautifully-acted and produced enigma, Phantom Thread proves to be an engaging and ultimately disquieting picture. Its defies its audience to understand it all at once.

My silence leaving the theatre seems justified. 

300 Words on "Darkest Hour" (2017)

Watching an actor transform and totally disappear into their character on screen is thrilling. I derive a certain amount of fun out of trying to see behind the make-up and manufactured accent looking for something which I recognize in portrayals of this kind, but few, I think, have been quite as seamless as Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour. Indeed, there were moments when outfitted in the period costume and chomping on a cigar, that Oldman and Britain’s war-time Prime Minister could have been one and the same. Oldman’s performance is central to Darkest Hour, and he has rightfully been lauded for his work here as he brings just the right amount of larger-than-life magnetism and subtle character to one of the most recognizable (and often portrayed) figures of history.

Oldman is surely the most memorable and watchable member of the cast, but he is supplemented by a fine directorial sense under the hand of Joe Wright who enlivens some of the film’s slower, and more historically arcane bits with some inspired cinematography. Darkest Hour, I say without hesitation, boasts some of the most striking visuals for any film of 2017, and from its opening overhead shot of a bickering Parliament, I was intrigued.

Darkest Hour has been accused of being by-the-numbers Oscar bait, but I could not disagree more. The film stands on its own as an intelligently-written historical drama which makes for an interesting complement to other Oscar-worthy films depicting the era such as The King’s Speech (2010) and Dunkirk (2017). Unlike those other films, however, Darkest Hour doubles-down on the historical content but never loses sight of what it truly is: a character study, and it emerges as an engaging – and surprisingly moving -  piece showcasing Gary Oldman in what is surely the pinnacle of his achievements as an actor.