The jagged desert of California - the kind that's not fine sanded with scattered cacti, but rocky and sharp with an occasional broken leg or two - is the turn of the 19th century backdrop to writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's (Boogie Nights /Magnolia) most recent rolling of an American landscape, There Will Be Blood.
Starring Daniel Day-Lewis (The Ballad of Jack and Rose) as fictitious oil baron Daniel Plainview, Anderson's latest offers a whirlwind of emotion, calling for plenty of speculators and upset stomachs.
This is not to say the film is a gore-fest, as its threatening title would suggest. Rather, the nausea might set in from the simple blunt force trauma of Anderson's uncompromising tale, set to the intense grandfather clock tick of Lewis' performance.
Loosely based on Upton Sinclair's Oil!, the motion picture portrayal tells the story of Plainview, beginning with his early days as a "shot in the dark" oil driller. Moving through every face he looks in the eye, he buys up desert land and builds his prosperous company.
At his side is his preteen son and business partner H.W. Plainview (Dillon Freasier), who has the quiet haunting eyes of a child laborer.
Daniel Plainview is the kind of role Day-Lewis was born to play - the well-spoken driller, the homegrown Carnegie, the anti-hero with a mustache. His quiet articulations echoing self-made Western wealth make Day-Lewis' performance outstanding even before memorable moments of outlandish wrath begin to play a factor.
Day-Lewis brings back the frightening authority he had as Bill the Butcher in Martin Scorcese's Gangs of New York, while being granted enough character complexity to truly let loose. He's already won a well of awards for his performance, including the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama on Jan. 13.
Audiences will crave the moments where Day-Lewis shares the screen with Paul Dano (Little Miss Sunshine) who plays Eli Sunday, a post-adolescent, money hungry minister destined to vex the heck out of Plainview.
Dano delivers a fine performance as the serpent preacher, complete with shrieking sermons and doe-eyed fa?\0xA4ades. With so much attention paid to Day-Lewis, it's likely Dano will receive few nods for supporting actor awards, however, audiences will be unable to deny his skilled, unsettling presence.
At a lengthy two hours and 40 minutes, this film had the potential to drag. And while on the whole it covers scores of ground, the film lives in the routine of the big business man - the moments of sales pitch, negotiation, success and setback. However, the film is crafted with anxiety and suspense to the point where individual scenes reach intensity levels uncharted by this rudimental, Citizen Kane style of filmmaking.
Enter musician Johnny Greenwood. The longtime Radiohead guitarist composed the film's original score, which is essentially the film's third leading role. When all that's onscreen is Plainview and his small crew of diggers, it's Greenwood's dissonant, then resolving, strings that fill the air, creating the nervous aura needed to drive the scene.
While prior Anderson films have been notorious for their many interwoven storylines, Blood proves to be the exact opposite. The abundant cast intensity of Magnolia and Boogie Nights is echoed here by the antiheroic lead in Blood. Daniel Plainview is the movie, and the movie is great.
The film is currently in limited release, branching into more and more theatres as the New Year moves forward, including Little Cinemas in Rochester, this Friday.
