There will be blood (2007)

With a curious opening and intrigueing, up-beat soundtrack, Anderson’s There Will Be Blood certainly leaves an impression. The film follows the life of a successful and eccentric oilman who uses methodical combinations of charm and charisma to prey upon unsuspecting ‘customers’. He travels across the country with his adopted son H.W, whose father died in a mining accident, too keep him company and too present the business as ‘family-run’. Although the pacing of the first third is slow, the grainy cinematography and instrumental soundtrack help create a familiar western atmosphere. Daniel-day lewis effectively sells his character with a more than convincing performance, passionately assissting his spiralling character arc as well as providing an adequate rivalry to Paul Dano’s, unhinged, Eli Sunday. The chemistry and power of both performances is the peak of the film alongside the well written dialogoue and the readily welcomed climaxes within the plot. Objectively, the story itself is simple but conceptually the film thrives on a symbolic level. There are two wars at play during the storyline, the war between Plainview and Eli Sunday and the war of morality Plainview finds himself in. Ultimately greed is a tyrannical force that destroys the protagonists relationships and sense of self.

Although the script is well-written, there seems to be a restraint on the screen-time both Dano and Lewis share. The character conflict is the most engaging part of the film yet its presence is scarce in comparison to transition scenes and slow moving ‘action’. Overall, the script and direction is of high quality and the acting deliveries are profound, however its weakenesses consist of slow pacing, tedious dialogue and a restricted viewing of Dano’s and Lewis’ scenes. The atmosphere created is by no means a stand-out quality of the film and in some scenes the up-tempo music feels out of place with the slow pacing of the feature. Never the less, there are some cinematic scenes with emotionally charged dialogue and delivery, with some beautiful cinematic shots, the best of which included oil… a lot of oil. Finally, it should be noted that this film ends with one of the most satisfying and thrilling scenes involving a priest and a bowling alley……