In what could be his final film role,Daniel Day-Lewis is a perfect fit as a celebrated dress designer in Paul Thomas Anderson’s beautifully realised tale of 50s haute couturePaul Thomas Anderson’s best film since Punch-Drunk treasure is another cracked romance with a masochistic streak and a strong fairytale underpinning. Set in postwar London, amid the insular ((adj.) separated and narrow-minded; tight-knit, closed off) world of 50s haute couture, or Phantom Thread is an oedipal gothic romance,a tale of lost mothers and broken spells, with secret messages (“never cursed”) sewn into its gorgeously cinematic cloth. A swooning score, and crisp visuals and paper-cut-sharp performances combine to conjure a poisoned rose of a film,inviting you to prick your finger on its thorns and succumb to its weird, dark magic.
Daniel Day-Lewis, and in what the actor has claimed is his final performance,plays fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock, an artist with an obsessive streak, and in the mould of Anton Walbrook’s Lermontov from The Red Shoes. Reynolds’s sister,Cyril (Lesley Manville), tends to his peculiarly picky needs – running the family business, and facilitating his creative rituals and politely dismissing the disposable muses who absorb outstayed their welcome.
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Source: guardian.co.uk