The main reason I kept putting off this Academy Best Picture nominee is director Paul Thomas Anderson. I hadn't enjoyed There Will Be Blood and didn't know any of his other works until Licorice Pizza. But after seeing it on my Netflix list enough times, I decided to get it over with.
In 1954, an elite London dress designer with the unlikely first name of Reynolds (Daniel Day-Lewis) talks waitress Alma (Vicky Krieps) into modeling for him. For the first time in his life, he develops feelings for a woman, and they are largely mutual. But his overbearing insistence on routine and lack of distraction from work makes him hard to live with, and Alma cooks up a nasty way to turn the tables on him....
From the title (in reference to superstitiously sewing hidden messages) and preview, I had expected something of a thriller. Instead, Reynolds is never worse than obnoxious, and even Alma has her limits. It is pure drama, with a score indicating little variation in intensity.
OK, you might call it romantic drama, but their relationship is not healthy for long. Certainly not in the final scene, which leads me to wonder (not for the first time) what message Anderson has in mind. Perhaps he doesn't intend to preach any morals. Given the prevalence of corruption and hypocrisy in Hollywood, that might be just as well.
My real problem with the film: It bored me. What can I say? The costumes won an oscar, but I have vanishingly little interest in them. Day-Lewis has done far more engaging characters, and the other actors are barely notable. Few momentous events happen in the 130 minutes, and '50s England is about the blandest setting to me. I had hardly begun to watch before starting another activity to stay alert, only sporadically looking at the picture.
It may take an unusual twist to persuade me to give Anderson another shot. The best I can say about this one is that it wasn't the worst nominee of 2017.
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