A review of the film “Phantom Thread”

It is 1954 in London and distinguished fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis, the only man to win three Academy Awards for Best Actor) meets a foreign waitress Alma Elson (Luxembourger Vicky Krieps) who becomes his muse, lover and wife in a tale written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (“There Will Be Blood” also with Day-Lewis).

I came late to this film because, having seen the trailer, I was not attracted to the ambience (a world where the rich pay excessive amounts for clothes) or the central character (a selfish and self-obsessed Woodcock). But, the latest lockdown of 2020, I was keen to find a film that I had not already viewed.

I was not wrong to have reservations about the work which, having seen, I admired rather than liked. The critics loved it, but I found it languid, if not ponderous, and the behaviour of the principals decidedly odd. Yet I have to acknowledge that the acting is excellent, the settings and costumes wonderful, and the music atmospheric. Day-Lewis in particular is mesmerising in what is apparently his last acting role.

Incidentally the opaque title of the film refers to Woodcock’s practice of sewing hidden messages into the linings of the dresses he makes. I told you some of the behaviours were odd.


 




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