Review: Phantom Thread

Phantom Thread (15)

USA 2017 130 mins  Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson  Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville

So here it is, then: Daniel Day-Lewis’s alleged swansong. A peculiar, precisely controlled, knowingly Hitchcockian period melodrama that reunites him with There Will Be Blood director Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread offers the retiring Day-Lewis a fabulously prissy, narcissistic and self-important character in which to immerse himself. Some may find this all a little too mannered, airless and self-consciously weird, but it’s worth the price of admission for the asparagus tantrum alone.

It’s the early 1950s and elegant, fastidious, temperamental Reynolds Woodcock (a Coen brothers name if ever there was one) is at the pinnacle of London haute couture, with a steady stream of neurotic, wealthy, swooning middle-aged women queuing to be beautified and soothed by his emollient tones, their entire self-worth at the mercy of his masterful fingertips. A confirmed bachelor (“Marriage would make me deceitful,” he reasons), Reynolds doesn’t want for female company, but his controlling sister Cyril (Manville) acts as both gatekeeper and enabler to ensure that the vital business of upholstering sagging female flesh proceeds without impediment. Enter thirtysomething Alma (Krieps), an unconventionally pretty waitress who catches his eye at a seaside hotel, penetrates his rarified world, and declines to conform to the role of subservient muse.

The perverse ensuing power struggle, in which Alma’s many small rebellions include, erm, eating her toast too loudly (“If breakfast is not right, it ruins the rest of the day,” pronounces the pompous couturier) takes unexpected twists that are best not revealed here – suffice it to say that just as Woodcock secretly sews messages and talismans into his fabrics, so Anderson inserts meanings for us to uncover. The Hitchcock influence is undisguised – with Cyril a clear Mrs Danvers figure and Alma taking the name of Hitch’s missus – but mercifully not overplayed, and the dialogue agreeably precise and piquant (“Whoever invented that word ought to be spanked,” sniffs Woodcock of the term ‘chic’). Day-Lewis inhabits his character with all the methody commitment we have come to expect, although it perhaps reflects poorly on this reviewer that I was occasionally put in mind of Dad’s Army‘s Sergeant Wilson’s more self-absorbed younger brother. Rather than wilting in such exalted company, both supporting female performances are equally impressive. Lesley Manville is riveting as the woman who, until now, has worn the (strictly metaphorical) trousers in the Woodcock household, while the unknown Vicky Krieps more than holds her own in the tricky role of Alma. Although we learn little of the character’s background, her increasing dominance is superbly played and utterly convincing.