
There Will be Blood
Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano
Released: 2007
Review by Roman the Fury

This movie deservedly won some academy awards. It’s a well made, focused flim about oil, greed, power and love, with a staggering performance by Daniel Day Lewis and a great soundtrack. If you haven’t seen it yet, get to it!
You’ll find yourself thinking about the movie days after seeing it. There’s something very oddly touching about everything that happens in the movie. As with most of Paul Thomas Anderson’s movies, you walk out of the movie feeling disoriented and perplexed. But, unlike Magnolia, the movie really pounded out on the same themes with much more direction and steady course.
Anderson loves exploring the human condition, and by adapting a book by Upton Sinclair he found a way to reveal something meaningful about people without jumping around too much. After Magnolia, you’re liable to feel perplexed about the movie as much as the human condition. But after seeing There Will be Blood, you will only feel perplexed about the human condition, and that’s what great cinema’s all about.
What do we seek in/for ourselves and what do we seek from others? How do we obtain what we seek, and how do we respond to the outcome of obtaining it or not obtaining it? Where does the center of the universe reside – within ourselves or within those around us, and how far does that universe reach? How many people around us exist within its boundary – how far reaching is that boundary? Who controls that universe? Daniel Day-Lewis’ character occupies a very small universe of one – himself. What are the consequences? How does his universe collide with other universes? Does the biggest one win? Just some questions this superb film leaves with this viewer. Disturbing film, but well worth viewing.
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