There Will Be Blood

Year: 2007
Running time: 158 minutes
Certificate: 15
Language: English
Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Dillon Freasier, Kevin J. O'Connor

Plainview makes his case.

There is something special about Daniel Day-Lewis. When he inhabits a role, he appears to genuinely live it, be it Bill the Butcher in Scorsese's Gangs of New York (which he is by far the best thing in), Last of the Mohicans' Hawkeye or any of his other all-too-rare roles. He has an uncanny knack of making many of the characters he plays iconic. His Daniel Plainview, the 'hero' of Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood has, for me, gone to the top of that short list.

Plainview is greed personified, his entire reason for being the acquisition of wealth; amoral and utterly without conscience. Especially in the first mostly dialogue-free 30 minutes, as he goes from scrabbling for small nuggets of silver to burgeoning oil baron, he is mesmerising, and you can't help but admire his willful perseverance, despite coming to loathe every other thing about him. There Will Be Blood could be seen as the story of the birth of American corporate greed, with Plainview pursuing the business of oil with a single-minded intensity that is uncomfortable to watch. When a partner dies in a horrifying accident early on, leaving behind an orphaned baby, Plainview takes on the care of the child HW (Dillon Freasier) not because of any moral reasons or any sense of duty or respect to his lost partner, but because he can see a potential way to use the boy to his advantage.

Knowing he's outmatched, Eli over-compensates.

Coming to California looking for cheap, oil-rich land following a tip off from Paul Sunday (Paul Dano), Plainview locks horns with Paul's preacher brother Eli (also Dano), opposing him on behalf of his small community. It isn't long before it becomes clear that corruption also runs deep in Eli, and he simply wants to be the community's alpha male, and seeing the charismatic Plainview gaining influence over his flock, does all he can to frustrate him, regardless of what it might cost others. His faith seems to clearly be an act, and such conniving fakery makes him as unpleasant as Plainview, and you can't decide who disgusts you more. Dano does his best, but it is clear he's not in the same league as Day-Lewis. Luckily this actually works to the film's advantage, as Eli wilts in the face of Plainview's intensity and it's clear he'll never get the best of the man. As examples of the early roots of corrupt capitalism and corrupt religiosity it is extremely effective, and exposes much of the human greed both things are built upon.

Plainview's oil burns away into the night.

Despite having no-one to really root for, the conflict between the two men is absorbing and the visuals are captivating. There is a scene in which an accident causes an explosion and a fire which is both upsetting and beautiful to behold. The young boy HW is caught in the explosion and loses his hearing. Terrified and desperate for reassurance, he clings to Plainview as if his life depended on it (which he surely thinks it does), but the monster of a man cannot leave him behind fast enough to get to his precious oil, burning away into the night. It's heartbreaking to watch. And yet, as Plainview stands silhouetted, watching the fire burn, the red glow and smoke gives the impression of curving round the lens into a suggestion of a baleful eye, completely unnatural and an unforgettable image, possible only in the medium of cinema.

When a man turns up claiming to be Plainview's half brother Henry (Kevin J. O'Connor), it seems there is a small chance for the man to show a little decency, but upon discovery of fraud his despicable and unforgiving side returns to the fore more powerful than ever.

The ending is about as grim as these characters deserve. Desperate for cash, Eli attempts to make a deal with the now obscenely rich Plainview, only to meet a ghastly death at the hands of the dreadful man. Considering himself beyond the reach of the law (much like today's corporate giants and oil magnates), he doesn't even try to hide the fact of the murder from his butler. The final image of him, sat next to Eli's body, the words "I'm finished" falling from his mouth illustrates better than any other shot the sheer loneliness of a self-serving existence such as his. It's doubtful the inhuman creature even realises his life is missing anything.

With a sickening but captivating turn from Day-Lewis at its heart, this is beautiful but disturbing, cinema distilled into its purest form.

Score: 9/10

Helen at Empire feels as I do, but Bill would say we over-rate it just slightly.