It's a film with the most bizarre title, and with two actors who give the most bizarre performances of the year. It's the only word fitting enough to describe this film. Bizarre.
Daniel Day-Lewis, who won an Oscar for his performance in My Left Foot in 1989 plays an eccentric, overzealous psychotic oil baron in Paul Thomas Anderson's bizarre oil-epic There Will Be Blood.
Anderson, who gave us Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love, and Magnolia gives us they story of man so filled with greed that he cannot stand anyone, even himself. Daniel Day-Lewis is Daniel Plainview, a silver prospector-turned oil baron who will stop at nothing to make money.
Upon learning of a vast tract of easily obtainable oil, Plainview immediately buys up all the land, swindling the people of Little Boston.
Plainview makes money hand over fist, but not without cost. He looses several men, and his own beloved son, H.W., even becomes deaf. But this is little matter to Plainview, who really only cares about money. It's all about the money.
The one person standing in his way is Eli Sunday, a southern Baptist-like preacher who tries to convert Plainview. Tries to make him join the congregation. Eli is played by Paul Dano, a fine young actor who played Dwayne in last years Best Picture nominee Little Miss Sunshine. Dano plays Eli over the top and very flamboyant, like all Southern Baptist preachers seem to be.
Eli tries to get Daniel to let him bless one of the new oil wells, but Plainview ignores his request, setting off a life-long feud between the two. But no matter what happens, it seems Plainview blames Eli Sunday for his problems- to a certain extent. And as he grows older with each passing day, Plainview becomes ever more emotionally erratic, even going so far as to kill a man in cold blood who only wanted nothing more than to be friends.
Even Daniel's own son becomes a liability, and he ushers him off to San Francisco to be rid of him after he sets fire to their house.
Plainview is mired in his own twisted little world where he care for no-one, not even himself, and the only thing that matters to him is money. Money he can never have enough of.
Daniel Day-Lewis is amazing as Daniel Plainview, and will probably win the Oscar for this performance. He is psychotically evil, yet manages to stay level head until he just snaps.
By the end of the film, Day-Lewis' character is nothing like he started out to be. But not only is Day-Lewis something to behold, in fact, the whole film is insanely bizarre! Paul Thomas Anderson does a splendid job directing, creating bits of insane turmoil out of nothing. This film is an homage to John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre; the opening scene is almost an exact copy. But where as both films are about greed and the lust for money, both films are also very different, too.
Both films have another thing in common, too: they are both darn good films. Day-Lewis is as good as Bogart in the latter film, but has many of the characteristics of Walter Huston's Howard. His performance draws you in and you can't help but stay focused. You Can't turn away.
You will either understand this film or think it's utterly stupid. It's easy to see how and why it was nominated. Either way, come see There Will Be Blood if only for Daniel Day-Lewis' brilliant performance. It's one of the top two of the year.
Movies it was nominated with for Best Picture: Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country for Old Men
Is the movie worth your time to watch?
9/10 22-02-08
Age at win: 50
Nominated for: Best Actor in a Leading Role, Daniel Plainview, There Will Be Blood
Nomination: 4/4 (acting), 4/4 (total); Win: 2nd
This review of Day-Lewis' performance in There Will Be Blood is late-comeing because it was forgotten about. Opps! Better late than never, right?
Anyway, Daniel Day-Lewis first won the Oscar in 1989 for the drama My Left Foot about a crippled Irishman who uses his foot to write and paint. Almost 20 years later he won again for playing Daniel Plainview, a man consumed by money and greed. A man who loves his son but only when he is not in the way.
By the end of the film, Plainview is insane and paranoid; Day-Lewis takes his character to new hights of bizarre acting. His best scene is one in which he beats to death an innocent man witha bowling pin. A bowling pin, no less!
Daniel Day-Lewis is incredible in the role and well deserving of the Oscar.
03-02-08
