If you would have asked me before I saw this film if I thought a movie about a guy in the early 1900's building an oil company literally from the ground up would be interesting I would have laughed in your face. That just sound boring. In fact, the first time I saw this movie I was hardly excited. I was dug in and prepared for 2 hours and 30 minutes of quality snooze time. That sleepy never came however. Not one time during this movie was I bored, and that includes two separate viewings.
So you might be wondering, why is this movie not boring? How could a movie about a guy building an oil company be that interesting? Well read on and I'll tell you.
Lets start with the cinematography. Beautiful. The stark landscape of America in the 1900's was surprisingly a visual feast. The days were very bright and the nights were very dark. The landscapes were dusty and covered with sparse grass, and all of the colors seemed muted to the point that the entire movie seemed washed with tans and browns. The shots were set up to showcase this in spades. The sets and costumes were created in such a way that I felt transported to that time period. I never once doubted that I was in the middle of America around 1900. All of these elements were crafted wonderfully by the movie crew and then captured with a near perfection by the director.
Next up is the music. This is one of the strangest movie scores that I can remember, but it completely fits with the context of the film. It almost feels like a horror movie score in a lot of ways, there is a lot of violin tones to be found here, and sometimes in unusual places. It is used as a tool to create tension in most cases, and it does that quite well. When you combine the unpredictability of Daniel Plainview with the tense violin tones you come away with a very unsettling experience.
Last and certainly not least is the absolutely amazing acting. Daniel Day-Lewis proves that he is one of the most qualified actors in Hollywood in his performance. He won the Oscar for male performance for this movie and it was well deserved. He takes a character that has got to be hard to portray and just runs away with it. Every scene he appears in, which is with very few exceptions the entire movie, is just magic. This quite honestly is one of the most amazing acting jobs I have ever seen. The character of Daniel Plainview is complicated, it's hard to describe him. He is smart but he is also crazy. He keeps a lot of himself hidden inside and yet he has an explosiveness inside him that his craziness tends to draw out occasionally. Daniel Day-Lewis was able to take all of this and put it into a performance that left the character completely believable. It was incredible.
10 wooden bowling pins out of 10.
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