there_wil_be

There Will Be Blood

U.S. Release Date: 12/26/07 (limited); 1/11/08 (wide)
Running Time: 2:38
Rated: R (Violence)

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Dillon Freasier, Ciarán Hinds, Kevin J. O'Connor

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson, based on Oil! by Upton Sinclair
Music: Jonny Greenwood
Studio: Paramount Vantage

“I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people. ... There are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking. I want to earn enough money that I can get away from everyone. ... I see the worst in people. I don't need to look past seeing them to get all I need. I've built my hatreds up over the years, little by little... I can't keep doing this on my own with these... people.”

If you’ve experienced Boogie Nights, Magnolia, or Punch Drunk Love, then you know what to expect out of a P.T. Anderson film—an expansively deep motion-picture equipped with a violently epic climax. With this in mind, you’d think that There Will Be Blood would contain a copious quantity of red liquid —especially considering the title. However, There Will Be Blood does not contain bucket after bucket of crimson-colored fluid, but rather pail after pail of inky black oil.

Based on the first 150 pages of Upton Sinclair’s Oil! and the life of famous oil man Edward Donheny, There Will Be Blood is an early 20th century account of one man’s ruthlessly competitive attempt at success.

From 1898 to 1927, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) goes from a hard-working trench digger to a dominant player in the increasingly gung ho world of oil drilling.

Daniel strikes it big in a town called Little Boston. There he meets a young man named Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). As Eli attempts to thrive at becoming the town pastor, Daniel and his son H.W. (Dillon Freasier) establish an oil empire. Yet, while both the religious head and the oil boss are driven by the need for triumph, both succeed and spiral downward in their own ways. In the end, we arrive at a profound understanding of who Daniel Plainview really is.

Plainview is the type of man that relies on no one but himself; he possesses a drive to succeed and a passion to watch the weak squirm. He controls his surroundings by removing the free-loading links from his chain and selfishly abandons those who appear to hold him back. Plainview is unafraid to spit in any man’s face who interferes with his control and tries to make him look a fool—be it pastor, partner, or family. Most of all, he will stop at nothing to be on top of the world.

With his blunt portrait of the mercilessly cutthroat Plainview, Daniel Day-Lewis carries There Will Be Blood. Day-Lewis truly embodies one of the best painted pictures of a cinematic character portrayal in years. With his gruff voice, manly facial-hair, confident strut, and threatening vein that protrudes from his forehead with excitement and/or anger, Day-Lewis channels the energy of Bill “The Butcher” from Gangs of New York and dishes out a career and Oscar-worthy performance.

While Daniel Day-Lewis secures his statue for Best Actor, Paul Dano and Jonny Greenwood also deserve considerable acclaim. Although his work here comes nowhere close to that of Javier Bardem’s support in No Country for Old Men, Dano is emotional and forceful as both Paul and Eli Sunday. With the score, Greenwood’s work was declared ineligible for consideration because the score wasn’t entirely original and exclusively written for the picture. Nonetheless, while the score’s crescendos beautifully mimic Steve Miller Band’s “Threshold,” the rest assists in telling the story just as much as the dialogue. If there is any score (since the silent era) that plays as big a part in assisting the script, it’s There Will Be Blood’s.

Despite sharing its name with the Saw series’ tagline and being influenced by The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, P.T. Anderson’s is a unique motion-picture—unlike any other film you’ll see in 2007. The acting is spot-on, the score is sound, and the running-time is ample. These collective aspects that make There Will Be Blood commendable aren’t exactly what typical moviegoers look for in a film. Even so, similar to the viscosity of oil, There Will Be Blood sticks to the fingertips and remains difficult to wash away.