As critical as the current oil situation is, I'd still hate to be back in Upton Sinclair's time. Paul Thomas Anderson's screen adaptation of Sinclair's "Oil!" - There Will Be Blood - makes those sentiments so. His beautifully gritty film tells it like it truly was, without any Hollywood schmaltz. On the surface, it's about early 20th-century oil drilling, but at it's core, it's an intensely powerful representation of the ages-old adage about the root of all evil.
Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis, who truly earned his Best Actor award) runs an oil business with his son in California. After receiving information from young Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) about oil on his family's ranch, Plainview attempts to buy their land. This leads to further complications, as Paul's deeply religious twin brother Eli isn't as immediately eager to pursue business prospects.
What follows is a stunning combination of corruption, greed, religious fervor and, ultimately, degeneration. Anderson depicts the true nature of oil at the turn of the century: the money and power that followed with oil could, and did, do terrible things to people. But rather than cover up this blemish of our nation's history, Anderson has brought it to life, and gloriously so.
There's not much more to say - see this movie.
4 stars out of 4
9.25/10
1 comment:
Absolutely unbelievable. One of the 10 or so best movies I've ever seen. Day-Lewis is a force.
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