Paul Thomas Anderson’s sumptuous, nihilistic epic about duplicitous brothers – particularly that most duplicitous pair of all, business and religion. There Will Be Blood is gorgeously filmed, stunningly scored by Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead, and anchored by a once-in-a-generation performance from Daniel-Day Lewis (there’s a fine complementary one from Paul Dano). PTA captures the harrowing world of turn-of-the-century oil drilling with exacting detail and gritty realism. The script is tremendous, an intricately constructed maze of mirrored events and thematic reoccurrences (note the repeated use of oil, blood, water, and milk), and the direction attains Kubrickian levels of symmetrical precision and chilling beauty. The ending is certainly bizarre, but like a Kubrick classic, the rough edges serve to enhance the singularity of vision in this masterpiece.
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