You Are Buttering Your Toast Too Loudly
Yet another great role from Daniel Day-Lewis, who this time became a spoiled, self-centred genius designer — Reynolds Woodcock. A talented perfectionist so consumed by his work that calling him a workaholic would be an understatement. He is in constant search of beauty, of inspiration. And in that search, he finds beautiful women. The first we meet is Johanna, but she doesn't stay with us for long. Her place is taken by Alma.
Life with Reynolds Woodcock is a nightmare that hardly any of us could stand for longer than a week. He seems constitutionally unable to compromise — not even slightly, not even at all. You cannot interfere with his routine. You cannot have needs of your own. You do not have the luxury of being in a bad mood. You are buttering your toast too loudly. And yet you must be there whenever he requires you.
Alma calls this demanding. The film lets that word hang in the air and says nothing more.
Her love for him is more like an obsession — wanting desperately for him to realise that they need each other. So she goes to drastic lengths to prove her point. Surprisingly, it works.
What Anderson has constructed here is a relationship study of forensic precision. Sharing a life with a significant other doesn't land high on Mr. Woodcock's priority list — and yet Alma finds a way to make herself indispensable, not through warmth or compromise but through something far stranger. She goes to drastic lengths to prove her point. Surprisingly, it works. It works even better when she reveals the truth to him. Well played, Alma.
This is another great performance from Day-Lewis, but Phantom Thread has enough talent in its cast that it could share it with half of last year's Hollywood productions and still amaze. Vicky Krieps as Alma and Lesley Manville as Cyril Woodcock add dimensions to the story that make it deeper and more interesting at every turn. The script does not waste a single word telling us about this bizarre relationship.
With all its weirdness, it is still a love story. Anderson knows this. The film holds both things at once without flinching.
Anderson is operating at the height of his powers here — the pacing, the sound design, Jonny Greenwood's score, the extraordinary control of atmosphere in every scene. The film is suffocating in exactly the way it intends to be. And yet somehow, despite everything, with all its weirdness, it is still a love story.