There Will Be Blood
Country and Year: USA (2007)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day Lewis, Paul Dano

Review By: Charlie Prince
Rating: 2 out of 4 stars (average)

Daniel Day Lewis deserves an Oscar nomination for his commanding performance in There Will Be Blood, but don’t let that fool you – this is Paul Thomas Anderson’s worst film to date. And while that need not be a serious criticism in light of Anderson’s magnificent track record, in this case, while not a bad film, There Will Be Blood is still a genuine disappointment.

There Will Be Blood tracks the rise of self-made “oil man” Daniel Plainview in early 1900s America. As the name would suggest, Plainview’s character is fairly straight-forward: he’s racing to beat the competition and get dirty, stinking rich. A clear caricature of this concept, Plainview represents unbridled, destructive greed. While Plainview fleetingly struggles with the possibility of developing into a three dimensional character, and while we come to understand that his actions are motivated from a self-professed hatred of other people, Plainview’s song is ultimately composed of one greedy note, repeated ad nauseam.

That said, scheming can make for interesting viewing, and the nearly three hour running time passes by fairly quickly (an accomplishment in itself). As you might expect, building an empire has its challenges, and watching Plainview maneuver through various roles is low-boil fun. One minute he’s getting his hands dirty as a laborer, the next he’s in the role of master negotiator, sniffing out bogus offers while wheeling and dealing.

Three hours later, and with little else to focus on as far as plot, we can at least delve into the intricacies of Plainview’s character. How far will he go to secure his fortune? And as we watch him give politician-infused speeches to communities where he wants permission to drill for oil, we see he is also adept at winning over an audience. When he is initially approached to buy information about an oil site (where, it turns out, the bulk of the film will take place), a young man asks him what religion he practices. Wanting only to say whatever will enable him to make the deal, Plainview answers that he likes all religions, to which he adds “I like everything.” An outright lie, of course, but in conveying his shamelessness, it’s hard for the director to be more straight-forward than that.

With the outlines of his character having been established so early in the film, there is little impact on the audience as we see him work his magic in this vein repeatedly throughout the story. The only marker for Plainview is success, and not even public humiliation is a daunting obstacle in this path. One landowner requests, as a condition to agreeing to lease his land, that Plainview agree to be baptized, and before long we get to see Plainview co-operate in his own public shaming, as he screams repeatedly that he has abandoned his son at the prompting of Eli Sunday, the vengeful priest played by the talented Paul Dano of Little Miss Sunshine fame.

Which brings me to my biggest complaint. While trailers for the film implied a problematic showdown with the ambitious priest Sunday, this proves to have been largely misleading. Although Sunday amounts to a gutsy nuisance, Plainview manages to overcome him fairly easily, and largely by ignoring him. He is not a threat, nor even a foil to Plainview’s sociopathic greed. Instead, Plainview seems to recognize in Sunday aspects of himself. After first witnessing Sunday’s theatrical sermon, Plainview comments that it’s a “helluva god-damned show,” in a kind of tip of the hat to a fellow manipulator. And in an early negotiation over the selling price of the Sunday family’s land, Sunday demands $10,000 “for the church,” prompting Plainview to say with seeming sincerity “that’s a good one.” (Small spoiler ahead) When Plainview later rejects his own son as having none of the Plainview (manipulative) spirit in him, this makes Sunday’s small-fry scheming seem all the more significant as the type of ambition Plainview would like to see in his son. But, consequently, Sunday’s character simply exists to further develop what remains a character study of Plainview. Minor confrontations with railroad shippers and others who make minor demands on his attention do not even remotely amount to a genuine challenge to his authority.

As a result, this is a drama in want of a conflict. The traditional model holds that a good story requires answering three questions: Who is your main character? What does he or she want? What is preventing him or her from getting it? The answer to the first two are plain enough (1. Plainview. 2. Unlimited success in the oil business), while the answer to the third is essentially “well, nothing really.” And that doesn’t make for a particularly riveting story.

Playing devil’s advocate, one could perhaps argue that the real answer to what motivates Plainview is his repressed desire for a family. Here is where the only real complexity to Plainview’s character comes in. Although little time in the film is spent addressing his family or his past, two key plot elements illuminate this point. The most obvious is Plainview’s relationship with his adopted son, who is on-screen as a child through the bulk of the film. While Plainview clearly sees the marketing value in pitching landowners as a wholesome “family” business (thus supporting the occasional references in the film that he is simply using the boy), we also are made to see scenes where Plainview shows genuine affection for the kid. (Mild spoilers in remainder of this paragraph). When Plainview’s son is injured in a drilling accident that renders him deaf, we are given conflicting messages. On the one hand, we see Plainview repeatedly comforting his son, enveloping him with affection at times and at one point rip-roaring-pissed at Sunday, who professes to be a healer, but who is plainly unable to do anything to help the injured boy. But is this motivated by a recognition that his bankable marketing asset has been downgraded? After all, when the boy is initially injured, Plainview barely seems to remember it. His assistant asks him if his son is okay, to which Plainview plainly acknowledges he is not, but this does nothing to distract him from the glee that he has stumbled on an “ocean of oil”. Even his assistant is nonplussed that the boss could be so unfeeling. And this scene, to my mind, is what prevents us from attaching too much importance to his internal struggle about family. The scene is meant to clearly convey that the hunt for oil success comes first. While he flirts with engaging his son meaningfully in a father-son relationship, it is ultimately an after-thought to the monotonous main story.

The second time Plainview’s repressed desire for a family is challenged is when a man shows up claiming to be his brother. Although he is initially skeptical, Plainview is clearly desperate for a family connection, immediately buoying his brother to the top of his corporate hierarchy, having him sit in on the most important meetings and negotiations. This is the only time we see Plainview open up a bit as to what is behind the mask. He says forthrightly that he dreamt of having a family and kids while growing up, but also confesses that he hates almost all people, and wants only to make enough money to get away from everyone. But without wanting to give away where this story arc goes, suffice it to say that this development breaks fairly late into the story. The brother is not a major character, and certainly seems to have no lasting impact on Plainview, except perhaps to paint him as an even more one-dimensional character by emphasizing his solitude. Overall, the complexities of Plainview’s repressed need for a family do little except to illustrate what lies behind the single-minded drive of the plot.

As I think back in writing this review, it really is remarkable how little there is to chew on for a film of this length. Remember that the basic concept of industrialization in the old West is familiar cinematic ground, and was recently explored in much greater depth in the HBO series Deadwood, there replacing oil with the gold rush. However, in contrast to Deadwood, There Will Be Blood, as noted above, lacks the elements that gave range to that backdrop: geniune power struggles, not to mention interesting characters, Shakespearean dialogue and fast-moving plotlines.

It is worth taking a moment to note that while it is ultimately a disappointing film, it is only fair to acknowledge that the film came with very high expectations. Early in the awards seasons, it has already received numerous kudos and has been widely discussed as a leading candidate for “best picture” of 2007, running neck and neck in the rumor mill with the far superior No Country for Old Men. And, of course, with a background of films consisting of Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love, director Paul Thomas Anderson had already set a very high standard for himself. But unlike his earlier films, and for that matter unlike his award season competitor No Country For Old Men, the monotonous tone of There Will Be Blood prevents us in the audience from identifying with the characters. While minor characters have humanizing roles, they exist only at the extreme periphery. Instead we are left with Plainview, who is as easily condemnable as he is greedy. This is especially true of the Citizen Kane-like ending, where we confirm that meaninglessness and solitude await a character who is self-admittedly incapable of love (all that is missing from the last 20 minutes is a reference to “Rosebud”).

Again, I don’t want to overstate my case — There Will Be Blood is not a terrible film. Daniel Day Lewis does meld with his character seamlessly, and for that the film does deserve some of the accolades it has been getting. But while I fully understand I’m in the minority in being disappointed with There Will Be Blood (and so you will probably want to get a second opinion), to my mind more is needed in a story than one actor’s towering performance. After all, Lewis himself proved that fact in the problematic Gangs of New York. Bottom line, a film, especially a film of this length, cannot pack much of a punch by relying solely on the simplistic, bumper-sticker reflection that greed is unfulfilling. And as a result, I suspect that once the film is released to the broader public, there are going to be a lot of audience members out there who are left wanting more.

© Charlie Prince

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