Inflammatory drama
Paul Thomas Anderson's epic "There Will Be Blood" is an amazing motion picture for many reasons, the most obvious one being Daniel Day-Lewis' stretched-steel performance as a prospector-turned-oil-baron and raging symbol of American capitalism's dark side.
As the ruthlessly charming Daniel Plainview, Day-Lewis creates the kind of anti-heroic character that Jack Nicholson would have unleashed on audiences during his prime, all while pumped full of acting steroids.
The story, loosely based on Upton Sinclair's muckraking 1927 novel "Oil!," begins in 1898 where young Plainview single-handedly digs for gold nuggets in the West. This wordless opening sequence, presented in grand, wide-screen elegance, shows how defiantly determined Plainview can be, especially after an accident severely injures him at the bottom of a mine shaft. Only true grit and raw will can get him to the nearest help many miles away.
Plainview sees the future in oil. A single man (women do not figure prominently in this primordial male tale of conquest and fortune), Plainview inherits an infant from a killed co-worker. He names the baby H.W. Plainfield and sets out across the West, looking for oil and, with his "son" at his side, charms well agreements out of the landowners he meets.
Now 10 years old, H.W. (played by a perfectly cast, laconic Texas actor and rodeo rider named Dillon Freasier) becomes a prop in his old man's schemes to amass an oily fortune as his "son and business partner."
One of the families they take advantage of is the highly religious and properly named Sunday family, presided over by Eli Sunday (a transfixing performance by baby-faced character actor Paul Dano). He cuts a deal with the devilish Plainview to pump oil from the Sundays' land. An ensuing wrestling match for power sets up a devastating, bitter relationship with repercussions that last a lifetime.
"Operatic" tends to be an over-used critic's term, but it truly applies here. Director/writer Paul Thomas Anderson continues to be one of the most original and intelligent filmmakers working today, and his stylized, overwrought narratives achieve sustained operatic levels, both visually and emotionally.
Anderson first presents Plainview as an American hero, a bootstraps entrepreneur who stops at nothing to win financial success. Then, as if taken from a parable in the Good Book, he begins to lose his soul in direct proportion to the wealth he amasses.
Even as Plainview's soul becomes as black as the crude he seeks, Day-Lewis finds increasingly higher pitches in his performance that still avoid Nicholsonian overkill.
Neither "chewing the scenery" nor "tour-de-force" comes close to capturing Day-Lewis' gift for going over the top. Plus, he throws in a John Huston-like sing-song delivery and the precisely enunciated, formalized speech of a bygone era of educated gentlemen.
Anderson made "There Will Be Blood" on the same patch of Texas land where both "Giant" and "No Country For Old Men" were photographed. His re-creation of the 1898-1927 era oozes with period authenticity, oddly undercut by an unexpected, brooding score from Radiohead musician Jonny Greenwood.
If "There Will Be Blood" runs on a tad too long (as Anderson tends to love a leisurely pace) and if its blunt ending hits us in the face, that's OK.
Here is one ambitious, unpredictable Texas movie where the hills overpower the valleys 10-fold.
"There Will Be Blood"
Four stars out of four
Opens today
Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview
Paul Dano as Eli Sunday
Dillon Freasier as H.W. Plainview
Russell Harvard as Adult H.W.
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, based on the book "Oil" by Upton Sinclair. Produced by Joanne Sellar, Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Lupi. At the Century Centre and River East 21 in Chicago, the Evanston CineArts 6 and the Renaissance Place in Highland Park. A Paramount Vantage release. Rated R (violence). Running time: 158 minutes.