Review - There Will Be Blood

I am not sure what to say about There Will Be Blood. On the one hand, it is a very beautiful, somewhat disturbing, and certainly epic film with a truly outstanding lead performance by Daniel Day Lewis. On the other, it left me confused, annoyed by that confusion, and having little idea what it was actually about.

Daniel Plainview (Day Lewis) is an oil prospector in the first years of the 20th Century, taking on the dangerous but necessary job of finding wells in California. An intense orator, he easily gets his way, buying up people’s land throughout the state. In one area, however, a young, and similarly intense, preacher called Eli (Paul Dano, the silent teenager in Little Miss Sunshine) makes his life difficult, and Plainview begins to lose his grip.

The scenes of digging for oil are electrifying. It is just so interesting to see it bubble up from ground like that, but the hideous, skull-smashing danger of the process means it is hard to even look at the screen. The film takes its time with such scenes, using long silences and Jonny Greenwood’s brooding, whirring score very effectively.

There is an immense sense of foreboding throughout the whole film, a fearfulness that stems from our fear of Plainview. Day Lewis is a boiling cauldron of violence and ferocity, producing a monumental performance that will surely go down as one of his best; he is an epic character creating an epic story around him from very little. Plainview’s son (Dillon Freasier) is an unnerving silent presence, and Dano’s Eli is an unnerving loud one.

Although I did enjoy my journey through the film, I was interrupted at various intervals as I realised I did not know what was going on. There is an issue surrounding Eli and his brother which, whilst I won’t go into it here so as not to give anything away, is very confusing, and I have still not resolved it in my own mind. It is galling because it is not really an important issue, and one that could have been easily remedied. The director, Paul Thomas Anderson, is obviously not careless, so I suppose this ambiguity must have been intentional, but the bewilderment it produced was very distracting, and I know I am not alone in feeling it.

I am also not sure about the meaning behind the film, apart from that Plainview was a bit of a loony and that greed is bad. Anderson’s previous works like Boogie Nights and Magnolia made instant emotional connections with audiences, but this film’s feelings are hidden behind a veil of both bombast and intense quiet. An outstanding mood-piece, There Will Be Blood is certainly masterful, if not quite a masterpiece.