Partway through Phantom Thread, I remembered that Paul Thomas Anderson also directed The Master, of which this most recent one reminded me a fair bit. I think it's mostly the way that the characters don't lend themselves to easy analysis or understanding, whether through surface or naturalistic expressiveness or easy story-telling, so the psychology of their interactions is revealed much more through their actions ... and doesn't that psychology turn out to have some corkscrews in it! No doubt there is plenty more at work there too - the constant close-ups, eccentric (but terrific) framing, the effect of the music - and it's every inch a PTA film including in its beauty (he really is a great director).
Anyway there are layers to this one and I didn't feel I fully understood it. You can trace back Woodcock's intense - and developmentally arrested - insistence on having everything just so to his relationship with his mother, and the notion of the curse is made just textual (as opposed to sub-textual) enough but not too much, and there is an interesting story with his sister there too (a terrific performance: Lesley Manville), but there's still a lot that doesn't give itself up so easily. We never learn anything meaningful about Alma's background or circumstances, as far as I can remember, which is also interesting and, combined with Woodcock's very male and privileged way of conducting his life also gave me some pause. For me though, ultimately that doesn't detract from the density of its depiction of the central relationship; we do learn a great deal about Alma's character and see her asserting herself and her self-respect all the way through. This feels like a film of weight that will linger.
(w/ Erandathie)
Anyway there are layers to this one and I didn't feel I fully understood it. You can trace back Woodcock's intense - and developmentally arrested - insistence on having everything just so to his relationship with his mother, and the notion of the curse is made just textual (as opposed to sub-textual) enough but not too much, and there is an interesting story with his sister there too (a terrific performance: Lesley Manville), but there's still a lot that doesn't give itself up so easily. We never learn anything meaningful about Alma's background or circumstances, as far as I can remember, which is also interesting and, combined with Woodcock's very male and privileged way of conducting his life also gave me some pause. For me though, ultimately that doesn't detract from the density of its depiction of the central relationship; we do learn a great deal about Alma's character and see her asserting herself and her self-respect all the way through. This feels like a film of weight that will linger.
(w/ Erandathie)
