There Will Be Blood<\/em><\/a>. A character study of a hateful man who becomes even more hateful by film\u2019s end, it attacks the viewer\u2019s sense obliquely.\u00a0 Even the most overt scenes, seemingly, have something hidden underneath, steeped in subtlety, elusive and intangible.<\/p>\nBlood\u2019s main character, Daniel Plainview played by Daniel Day Lewis, is a lone prospector when we first meet him.\u00a0 He is a misanthropic man caring only about matters of business.\u00a0 Daniel adopts a boy recently orphaned by an oil rig accident.\u00a0 His intentions are to exploit the adoration the boy will receive to make Daniel appear more warm, familial, and appealing to townsfolk who are potentially going to allow him to set up oil derricks on their land.\u00a0 However, Daniel clearly loves the boy he has named H.W. and has formed as tight a father son bond as ever there has been in film.\u00a0 Yet, Daniel\u2019s sudden inability to communicate with his adopted son forces him to turn a deaf ear to H.W.<\/p>\n
Daniel\u2019s potential for family love is further plumbed when his half brother shows up out of nowhere to ask Daniel for a job.\u00a0 Daniel\u2019s loneliness and feelings of alienation surface and he is happy to have someone with the same blood flowing through him with whom he can share his utter contempt for the world and all its people.\u00a0 However, Daniel soon buries this relationship as well.<\/p>\n
One of the more intriguing storylines of the film is Daniel\u2019s confrontations with the preacher\/healer Eli Sunday, played by Paul Dano.\u00a0 Eli\u2019s willful, quiet intrusions on Daniel lead to several of the film\u2019s most intense scenes including Daniel\u2019s tempestuous baptism at the hands of Eli.\u00a0 It feels as if at least one scene is missing from this confrontational relationship that would help us to pin down the unexpected and, seemingly, inconclusive ending of the film.<\/p>\n
The components of the film are brilliant from Daniel Day Lewis\u2019s explosive and inhabited performance, Robert Elswit\u2019s nostalgically haunting cinematography, excellent supporting performances from Paul Dano and Dillon Freasier as H.W., and the sometimes driving, sometimes lyrical original music by Radiohead\u2019s Jonny Greenwood.\u00a0 All of these components work to excel the film past ordinary.\u00a0 The film will not take you where you expect to go, but even so there is much to enjoy along the way.\u00a0 Though, not Anderson\u2019s best film, it is worth the watch, a worthy addition to the Anderson oeuvre, and the stuff second viewings are made for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reviewed by Byron Potau. Viewed at Parks Plaza Theatre, Buellton, Ca. It is difficult to know what to make of Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s latest film, There Will Be Blood. A character study of a hateful man who becomes even more hateful by film\u2019s end, it attacks the viewer\u2019s sense obliquely.\u00a0 Even the most overt scenes, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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