Walking out of the theater, I hardly knew whether to laugh or cry - "There Will Be Blood" is that kind of movie. It's narrowly focused and vastly sprawling, rapid and agonizing, busy and lonely, and utterly brilliant. Based on Upton Sinclair's story "Oil!," "There Will Be Blood" is ostensibly a story about an oilman in the early 20th century, but it's actually about Daniel Day-Lewis going slowly and awesomely bonkers. One of the most talented actors in the history of cinema, Day-Lewis sinks his teeth into a juicy role and delivers a magnificent, transcendent performance.
This is not a film to pull punches. In the opening sequence, an interminable and tense five minutes without dialogue, a man falls to his death at the black, muddy bottom of a crude vertical well. Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis) steals both the man's discovery of oil and his infant son. In a typically disconcerting move, the story cuts from Plainview cashing in to him tenderly stroking the baby's cheek. It's the American dream, built on cutthroat deceit and greed. Plainview's family rests on the same foundation. For a while, Day-Lewis makes Plainview's relationship to his adopted son look like genuine love. The boy's cute enough, but his real purpose is to let Day-Lewis emanate some of the most messed-up emotions ever committed to film. Even in the most father-son moments, the threat of the title always hangs coldly overhead.
In a culture more accepting of antiheroes than ever before, Plainview makes even Tony Soprano look like a softy. Yet each of his decisions, even when he abandons his injured son to take charge of an oil fire, is presented with an emotional distance that never judges, only documents. Is Plainview evil, or just broken? Part of the movie's magnetism is that, even by the end, the answer is never clear.
Oozing charisma and power, Day-Lewis threatens to explode the screen with his intensity. He pulls off with virtuoso aplomb the complex task of carrying a movie about an unlikable and perhaps incomprehensible man.
If Plainview is a twisted personification of the American dream, preacher Eli Sunday, played eerily well by Paul Dano, is an equally warped embodiment of evangelical religion. Sunday is Plainview's archenemy, the only person in town with the sway to stand up to the oilman. Religion may be just another form of obsession in this movie, but the battles between Sunday and Plainview make for some terrific viewing.
In a couple of years, graduate students will go into longwinded raptures about the symbolic meaning of every piece of "There Will Be Blood." Some of what they write may even really be there. But the movie works on multiple levels as a piece of art and entertainment. It may be infuriatingly ambiguous (in the best possible way), but it's also one heck of a ride. Without a doubt one of the best movies of 2007, Daniel Day-Lewis's phenomenal performance lifts it to the realm of unforgettable.
Rating: 3.5 stars/4
