Movie Review: Phantom Thread

When discussing beautiful movie scores, Phantom Thread (2017) has come up on several occasions. It was nominated for an Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA for Best Original Score, sadly not winning any of them. While I've heard individual pieces of the score, I hadn't seen the movie, which I rectified Tuesday night. 

Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Maya Rudolph's husband), Phantom Thread is a story set in the 1950s about a world famous dressmaker named Reynolds Woodcock* (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his muse, Alma (Vicky Krieps). 

Adored by the rich and famous, his vision and creativity in the fashion world caused most to overlook his fastidious, sometimes obsessive, and selfish behavior. His sister, Cyril (Lesley Manville), was his greatest supporter and enabler, though while she worked around his childish game playing, she generally refused to get pulled into them herself.  

Although I'm attempting to make this a spoiler-free review, I do want to comment on the unhealthy nature of the love portrayed in Phantom Thread. My thoughts stemmed from watching an interesting analysis a friend sent after I watched the movie. Love requires you to be open to the person you care about, and in its best form the person makes that decision for themselves...the giving of one's self. In Phantom Thread, openness and change are forced on characters - a taking of the other person - which makes it a selfish love. What's interesting is the main characters each do it, just in different ways. The issue I take is the movie doesn't exactly paint this in a bad light. The characters are unhappy with their relationships at various points, but instead of coming to an understanding and each giving a little, they make sometimes drastic choices in order to forward their own wants or needs. There's very little...true collaboration in the relationships. And yet things move forward and appear to work out, which wouldn't have happened without the relationship taking a destructive turn. 

While Phantom Thread didn't win for Original Score, it did receive an Oscar and BAFTA for Best Costume Design, which was well deserved. Reynolds' relationship with his work was an interesting thread (pun intended) of the story and, since the movie was about fashion, the dresses took center stage. The detailing, fabric, colors and designs were amazing. With the amount of time and painstaking effort it clearly took to make each and every dress, I can't imagine how much they would have cost in real life.  

Rated R for language, it's worth noting there's a scene where Alma wears an extremely sheer slip dress while her measurements are being taken. Her lack of voluptuousness is discussed, though in a perfunctory manner, as opposed to a salacious or derogatory way. And while sex was implied, both indirectly and directly, I appreciated the director's restraint in opting for a "closed door" approach. 

If you're a fan of Daniel Day-Lewis or fashion in the 1950s, I'd say Phantom Thread is worth watching. The tension and dysfunction are enough to keep me from re-watching it (unless with someone who hadn't seen it before), but it has enough merit for me to recommend it in general.

Have you seen anything recently worth recommending? 

~ Katie Q. 🐧

* Daniel Day-Lewis came up with the name as a joke, making Paul Thomas Anderson laugh so hard he decided to keep it. 

Fun Facts: 

• Director Paul Thomas Anderson got the initial idea for the film while he was sick in bed one day. His wife, Maya Rudolph, was tending to him and gave him a look that made him realize that she had not looked at him with such tenderness and love in a long time.
• Vicky Krieps did not meet Daniel Day-Lewis until her first day on set. As Day-Lewis famously stays in character during production of his films, Krieps was instructed to refer to him as "Reynolds" for the duration of filming. In multiple interviews promoting the film, Krieps still referred to Day-Lewis as "Reynolds."
• Many of the staff of the Woodcock couture house, as well as other bit parts, are played not by professional actors but by real seamstresses or persons connected with the fashion world. Joan Brown and Sue Clark were retired dressmakers that Paul Thomas Anderson and Mark Bridges met while doing research at the Victoria & Albert Museum's historic clothing archive. Amber Brabant, Geneva Corlett, and Cecile Van Dijk are professional film costumers. Georgia Kemball is a textile designer.
• In preparation for the film, Daniel Day-Lewis watched archival footage of 1940s and 1950s fashion shows, studied famous designers, consulted with the curator of fashion and textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and apprenticed under Marc Happel, head of the costume department at the New York City Ballet. He also learned how to sew, and he practiced on his wife Rebecca Miller, trying to recreate a Balenciaga sheath dress that was inspired by a school uniform.
• The typeface used for the credits is called Reynolds Stone and it was created by the English wood engraver, typographer, and designer Reynolds Stone, who was a close friend of the parents of Daniel Day-Lewis. When Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day-Lewis were devising the character of Reynolds Woodcock, they agreed that they wanted the film to have a sort of "Reynolds Stone look," and the character's name, Reynolds Woodcock, was partly inspired by this as well.