Daniel Day-Lewis has not been seen on screens since he won his third Best Actor Oscar for the title role in Lincoln, and supposedly Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread will be his last ever film role. Even though we may find ourselves without one of the world’s foremost actors in any future movies (sometimes cited as the greatest-living), Day-Lewis will bow out with this stunning-looking, and oddly eerie film as his curtain call.
Set in the glamour of 1950s post-war London, renowned dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) are at the center of British fashion, dressing royalty, movie stars, heiresses, socialites, debutants and dames with the distinct style of The House of Woodcock. Women come and go through Woodcock’s life, providing the confirmed bachelor with inspiration and companionship, until he comes across a young, strong-willed woman, Alma (Vicky Krieps), who soon becomes a fixture in his life as his muse and lover. Once controlled and planned, he finds his carefully tailored life disrupted by love. With his latest film, Paul Thomas Anderson paints an illuminating portrait both of an artist on a creative journey, and the women who keep his world running.
Check out the trailer for Phantom Thread below:
Here was have a bold, character-driven piece which seems difficult to surmise but leaves the viewer aching with anticipation. Paul Thomas Anderson has since rebelled against traditional narrative cohesion, often languidly pacing his films out with a suitable finesse. The tone for Phantom Thread seems to continue this trend as the trailer hints at something going on beneath the surface of his main character, something perhaps even sinister. Count on Phantom Thread to be as divisive as either of the director’s last two movies, The Master and Inherent Vice.
The poster for Phantom Thread was also released with the trailer. A stunning, soft but sparse design that adds a further sense of allure that the trailer (the entire production for that matter) hints at.
Check it out below:
Phantom Thread has been under heavy secrecy since the film’s announcement over a year ago. The title of the movie wasn’t even confirmed until earlier this month. The film marks another collaboration between Anderson and composer and Radiohead member Johnny Greenwood, and it finds the director sans his usual director of photography Robert Elswitt and acting as his own cinematographer for the first time. Phantom Thread is Paul Thomas Anderson’s eighth movie and his second collaboration with Daniel Day-Lewis. Lesley Manville, Richard Graham, and Vicky Krieps round out the rest of the cast.
Phantom Thread hits limited theaters on December 25th.
Images: Universal, Annapurna
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