Phantom Thread: A Review
Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, Phantom Thread, feels like his most delicate creation yet: an intimate illustration of the complexity and mishmash of romantic relationships.
Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day Lewis) is a successful luxury dress maker in 1950s London. Woodcock’s work is his religion and his monkish devotion to his work has accelerated him to the zenith of the fashion world. Woodcock spends the majority of his day working in his home, which also serves as his workshop, assisted by sister, Cyril (Lesley Manville). His seamstresses, dressed in all white, move swiftly and quietly through the house. This precision carries over into Woodcock’s love life.
The movie follows the affair of Woodcock and his current live in muse, Alma (Vicky Krieps). Alma’s clumsiness is the obvious foil to Woodcock’s stoicism, and her antagonisms invigorate Woodcock’s work. In one of the most captivating scenes of the film, Woodcock peeks through an eye hole at Alma modeling a dress, as her body loosely dances through the room, while the other models remain stiff.
Woodcock and Alma are not Lennon and Ono or Warhol and Sedgwick, though. Woodcock can be nasty and abusive to Alma at times. The inevitable dissolution of Alma and Woodcock’s relationship, while a source of humour for the audience, becomes cringe worthy as Alma gives “every piece” of her to Woodcock. Alma’s devotion, as Film Crit Hulk, eloquently notes in his piece on the film, “is the horror of daily emotional abuse, some of which are so mundane as to be instantly recognizable. And we can only watch in horror as Alma, who is given every excuse to run, to escape from this rigged game, chooses to fight for her space and opt back in.”
The strength of Phantom Thread is its unwillingness to paint Alma as a tragedy of unrequited love or excuse Woodcock’s misconduct. In fact, Phantom Thread is about the dialectics of power in a relationship and how this interplay, while offbeat, helps to fill needs greater than the relationship.
Neither Woodcock nor Alma is perfect. The same goes for Cyril, a third component of this love affair. Cyril is engrained in Woodcock’s life — a devotee, who helped him finish his first dress as a teenager. Throughout the movie Cyril’s attitude toward Alma changes from skeptical to appreciative. Alma is able to fill a space in Woodcock’s life that Cyril can not.
Alma provides the maternal care that Woodcock is missing. At the lowest point in Alma and Woodcock’s relationship Alma literally serves up a dish of revenge in the form of a mushroom omelet. This scene could easily be seen as Alma returning Woodcock’s abuse blow for blow. But Alma is seeking something else from Woodcock. As Woodcock’s doctor is called, Alma insists on taking care of him and commenting that, “sometimes he needs a break.” These words would never be uttered by Cyril, she is too focused on Woodcock’s productivity. Woodcock’s desire for maternal care becomes evident in his illness.
One night Woodcock has a feverish dream and hallucinates that he sees his deceased mother. Our only prior knowledge of his mother is that he made his first dress for her. Of course she is wearing this dress in Woodcock’s aberration. As Woodcock announces to his mother, “I just miss you,” Alma comes in to the room to take care of him and his mother disappears. The next morning Woodcock proposes to Alma, a gesture he once told Alma he would never do. He yearn for the maternal care that Alma can provide.
Phantom Thread isn’t afraid to dig under the surface of how relationships function. A partner can’t fill every need in life, as PTA understands. Peel back the extremity of poisoning your partner and you begin to see Woodcock is only happy once he accepts that Alma fills one part of his needs, maternal care while Cyril fills his need for stringency. In a final scene Cyril pushes a baby carriage as Alma and Woodcock go for a walk. Cyril organizes the day, while Alma excites it. While it’s easy to focus on the spectacle of Alma and Woodcock’s unhealthy relationship, under the surface there are even more controversial arguments about modern romance. We hold so tightly onto the concept of one person being our everything — our soul mate, our lover, our confidant, our caretaker, etc…, but Phantom Thread isn’t afraid to question this concept.
