Phantom Thread, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Phantom Thread, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Phantom Thread has been nominated for a remarkable six Academy Awards, including the important:

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role…

Best Director, Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Best Achievement in Costume Design and…

Best Picture

Viewers could feel that the Academy has been too generous.

If we consider that this film only had two Golden Globes and the BAFTA nominations do not include Best Picture, we could harbor doubts.

On the other hand, Phantom Thread has an impressive Metascore of Ninety, which means critics loved it.

They appreciated this work of art as nearly…perfect!

This viewer begs to differ.

There is of course a lot to admire in this motion picture.

Daniel Day Lewis is so accomplished, such an artist that he transcends the screen in many moments.

And yet, even at this performance the undersigned would say that it is not on a level with the now classic

My Left Foot

For this film, Daniel Day Lewis has been taking the role off the set and he refused to use his hands.

This has infuriated people near him.

One could wonder about the preparations to play Reynolds Woodcock, a renowned dressmaker.

Has Daniel Day Lewis taken materials and started to sow them, or at least make some…Phantom Threads?

The hero of this motion picture is a complicated man, with remarkable qualities, shadowed by equally large shortcomings.

Reynolds Woodcock is an artist, creator of fabulous dresses and royalty, the rich, movie stars love his work.

On the other hand, he can be so obnoxious, pretentious, arrogant, distant, rigid, derisive and lugubrious.

This is a main character that is so hard to like.

The problem for this onlooker is that Alma aka Vicky Krieps is also difficult to admire or sympathize with.

If Reynolds Woodcock has many advantages, admirable traits- well, at least his genius for designing clothes and drawing- what about the other main personage?

What traits does Alma have that could render her pleasant?

Difficult to say.

She appears to love Reynolds, but at the same time, it appears that she uses poisonous mushrooms for his diet.

Alma has little influence in the household controlled by Woodcock and his offensive sister, Cyril.

However, her manipulation does reach an extreme when she tries to poison the man she loves, with a dose big enough to incapacitate him, but not sufficiently large to kill him, in order to gain control over him.

At times, this feels like the archetypal love and hate bond, or maybe even a manifestation of the Stockholm syndrome.

The honest thing to do might be to admit that the meaning of most of this film escapes the undersigned.

Why is Alma risking the death of the man she is supposed to love?

Because in spite of the fact that she had worked in a restaurant, the precise knowledge of how much deadly mushroom powder one can add to the food must have surely eluded this simple woman.

This viewer finds it awkward to try to conclude regarding Phantom Thread, which has great scenes, but overall could be characterized as uneven.