There Will Be Blood
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cert: 15
Time: 2 hrs 38 mins
In choosing to watch this film my decision had been motivated more out of a desire to see how well Daniel Day Lewis filled the lead role than to endure two and a half hours worth of what I anticipated would be an unpleasant tale. And now that I have seen it I can confirm that Day Lewis is fully deserving of his best actor Oscar and the story, is indeed an unpleasant one.
Daniel Plainfield (Day Lewis) is an oilman, whom we meet at the start of the great American oil rush. The tale then takes us on a sweeping journey of skullduggery and money making during which Plainfield rides rough shod over anyone prepared to stand in his way and particularly the residents of the town of New Boston, California. He is the sort of man who can’t look you in the eye when he shakes your hand, because he knows his methods are suspect and he has much to hide. And as the oil flows and his wealth increases so does it corrupt, turning Plainfield into an evil man with a mind that is even prepared to destroy the bond that exists between father and son.
I think it was Oscar Wilde who coined the phrase “He knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.” Nowhere is that more apparent than here, in this powerful and unflinching film.
4/5
CA
