Phantom Thread is a drama from director Paul Thomas Anderson that's set in the fashion world of London of the 1950s. The main character, Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis), is a couture icon and something of a womanizer -- until he meets one special woman. There's not a ton of iffy content, but the overall themes are fairly mature. Sex isn't shown, but it's suggested. Characters kiss, and there's some semi-nudity when women try on clothes and are shown in sheer underwear. Language includes a few heated uses of "f--k" and "f--king," as well as "hell." A minor character drinks until she passes out, and there's additional social drinking and smoking. Characters struggle for power in a largely negative way, arguing with, commanding, and even poisoning others.
The film is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, He was one of the first of the "video store" generation of film-makers. His father was the first man on his block to own a V.C.R., and from a very early age Anderson had an infinite number of titles available to him. While film-makers like Spielberg cut their teeth making 8 mm films, Anderson cut his teeth shooting films on video and editing them from V.C.R. to V.C.R.
Part of Anderson's artistic D.N.A. comes from his father, who hosted a late night horror show in Cleveland. His father knew a number of oddball celebrities such as Robert Ridgely, an actor who often appeared in Mel Brooks' films and would later play "The Colonel" in Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997).
Anderson got into film-making at a young age. His most significant amateur film was The Dirk Diggler Story (1988), a sort of mock-documentary a la Esto es Spinal Tap (1984), about a once-great pornography star named Dirk Diggler. After enrolling in N.Y.U.'s film program for two days, Anderson got his tuition back and made his own short film, Cigarettes & Coffee (1993). He also worked as a production assistant on numerous commercials and music videos before he got the chance to make his first feature, something he liked to call Hard Eight, Sidney (1996), but would later become known to the public as "Hard Eight". The film was developed and financed through The Sundance Lab, not unlike Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992). Anderson cast three actors whom he would continue working with in the future: Altman veteran Philip Baker Hall, the husky and lovable John C. Reilly and, in a small part, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who so far has been featured in all four of Anderson's films. The film deals with a guardian angel type (played by Hall) who takes down-on-his-luck Reilly under his wing. The deliberately paced film featured a number of Anderson trademarks: wonderful use of source light, long takes and top-notch acting. Yet the film was reedited (and retitled) by Rysher Entertainment against Anderson's wishes. It was admired by critics, but didn't catch on at the box office. Still, it was enough for Anderson to eventually get his next movie financed. "Boogie Nights" was, in a sense, a remake of "The Dirk Diggler Story", but Anderson threw away the satirical approach and instead painted a broad canvas about a makeshift family of pornographers. The film was often joyous in its look at the 1970s and the days when pornography was still shot on film, still shown in theatres, and its actors could at least delude themselves into believing that they were movie stars. Yet "Boogie Nights" did not flinch at the dark side, showing a murder and suicide, literally in one (almost) uninterrupted shot, and also showing the lives of these people deteriorate, while also showing how their lives recovered.
WHAT'S THE STORY? In PHANTOM THREAD, Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a titan of the fashion world in 1950s London. He dresses everyone from stars of the stage and screen to royalty. He likes absolutely everything just so, and his stern, commanding sister/business partner, Cyril (Lesley Manville), does her best to make sure nothing changes. One day, while temporarily escaping the big city, Reynolds slips into a little diner and is entranced by a clumsy waitress, Alma (Vicky Krieps). He invites her to his home and dresses her, then keeps her around as a mannequin and muse. But as Alma starts to become just another one of Reynolds' conquests, she decides that she won't go down so easily and starts to assert her own kind of control over their relationship. Could this be love?
MOVIE INFO Rating: R (for language) Genre: Drama Directed By: Paul Thomas Anderson Written By: Paul Thomas Anderson In theaters: Jan 19, 2018 Wide Runtime: 130 minutes Music: Jonny Greenwood Studio: Focus Features, Universal Pictures Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, Vicky Krieps
Source: CommonSenseMedia & IMDb