Review: Phantom Thread

 Part of what makes Paul Thomas Anderson's films so enthralling - well, maybe not so much Inherent Vice - is that they're almost always primarily about people coping with other people. They're relationship dramas where often the nature of the relationship remains hidden. But with Phantom Thread Anderson seems to show his hand early: this is the story of a bond between a man and a woman, and if it never quite seems fully sexual, matters of the heart are always at the fore.

The 1950s British setting allows fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) to be as stiff and stodgy as possible and still be taken seriously; a decade later and he'd be wildly out of tune with society, a decade or two earlier and to us he'd seem like a joke. As it is, he's defiantly out of style - "couture" is a dirty word to him - while still raking it in making one-off gowns for nervous or vaguely sinister society matrons.

But while his place in the world seems set from the outset, everyone around him is presented in a much more uncertain fashion. His first paramour is disposed of after making too much noise over breakfast; she's disposed of by his secretary / assistant Cyril (Lesley Manville), who we only gradually learn is also his sister. And when, while on a visit to his country retreat, Woodcock meets Alma (Vicky Krieps), he sweeps her into his life without ever bothering - as far as we see - to learn a single thing about who she is or how she came to be working in a small town cafe.

What follows then, is the story of Alma's struggle to become real - to be seen by Woodcock as his equal, and to have their relationship acknowledged as a true partnership. As first she tries to raise herself up, allowing him to dress her and make her part of his world; when it becomes obvious that she's on a path that will never lead to a place by his side, she resolves to bring him down. The twist here is that he welcomes it, accepting her extreme methods as perhaps the only way he can escape from himself - which, after all, is one of the reasons we yearn to fall in love.

If there's a serious flaw in this beautifully made film, it's that by keeping Alma a mystery to us, the reasons why she goes to such lengths to keep Woodcock in her life remain a mystery too. We see her enjoy his company and the life he offers, but we never really get to know her heart - unlike Woodcock, who in his more monstrous moments simply doesn't have one. It's a gothic romance about a woman dashing herself against a rock that lies where her lover's heart should be, but for a romance to work we need access to someone's heart, somewhere in the story.

Perhaps casting Daniel Day-Lewis is enough. He's a joy to watch here - as is Krieps, always convincing as his equal, coming across as a woman who actually does have secrets rather than just a background the film couldn't be bothered filling in - and perhaps the thrill of seeing Day-Lewis enjoying himself as a floppy haired bickering shit is enough to justify Alma's passion. The point here isn't the why, but the how; how in this hermetic, ritualistic world devoted to making objects of great beauty, there can be a place - if only, as it turns out, a secret place, hidden from sight as if stitched into the lining of a jacket - for messy, passionate love.

Anthony Morris