Phantom Thread - Movie Review

The trailers for Phantom Thread looked a bit brooding to me. My wife wanted to see this film. The 8.7 rating at IMDb made it hard for me to resist. Trailers can be deceiving. But I was a bit apprehensive about seeing a love story set against the backdrop of a fashion house in 1950s London.

Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day Louis) is as punctilious as he is pedantic. His perfectionism gives him an air of arrogance. The rigors of dressmaking appear to take a toll on him. His life is one of rigid rules and routine. He is urged by aid, Cyril (Lesley Manville) to take a break in the country. There, he discovers an awkward girl, Alma (Vicky Krieps), who begins to thaw his heart. Alma goes to work for Woodcock as one of his runway girls. But she is more than just a runway girl. She lives in the house as well. There is a flicker of chemistry between the two, but Woodcock's finicky personality seems a chasm between them.

Alma also has a quirky personality. She is as persistent as Woodcock is meticulous. As she begins to understand the deeper struggles beneath the quirks, Alma asserts herself vocally as well as through sedition. A steady stream of royalty and high society pass through the fashion house, the economy that pays for its maintenance. Yet Alma intersects that flow with the validation of Woodcock that doesn't seem to come from dressing the who's who of the bourgeois. Woodcock is fragile while Alma is his medicine. But the cure is a strange one.

Phantom Thread was exactly what I expected it to be. A pretentious Christmas release meant to impress Oscar voters. I found the film to be a bit too brooding slow for my taste. The story is peculiar, just bizarre enough to have a mild twist at the end. But the torment of the main character grated on me at times. Daniel Day Lewis was exceptional, don't get me wrong. He made the tortured soul believable. But it was over-the-top for me. The reluctant pacing drew the story out. Some of it was necessary to create the foundation of the bizarre relationship between the two lead characters. But I found it was overdone, making the film tedious at times.

The casting for Phantom Thread was excellent. Lewis added incredible depth to his character. In fact, I really enjoyed the characters in this film. It was driven by character tics. But Lewis was overshadowed by an impeccable performance by Krieps. He became the counterpoint to her character, which was written intentionally as the stronger character. She gave that character the credibility needed to sell the story. The dialogue will probably be considered the strength of this film to the Hollywood set. It was sharp at times. But the film sometimes bogged down in the dialogue as well. Great casting, decent writing, sluggish pacing. A dose of action may have done this film a favor. The closest thing we get is Woodcock's penchant for driving fast.

Part of the reason Phantom Thread felt so long is because it was. The film has a two hour, ten minute run time. Certainly there was ten or fifteen minutes they could have cut from this film. The movie received an R rating from the MPAA. It is an adult oriented film, but not overtly gratuitous. There is no sex and nudity, unless you consider breasts through a sheer gown to count. The film deals with adult themes, particularly one that skirts the issue of death. Primarily, the rating is tied to language, which seems a bit harsh. I would probably have rated this film a PG-13.

Phantom Thread is a decent movie, but there is no way I would justify an 8.7 rating like the one at IMDb. The film had limited release over Christmas, so the real world bourgeois are probably responsible for that rating. Once real movie-goers get to this film, I would expect the overall rating to drop close to an 8. I am not quite that high myself. The story had merit. The performances were excellent. But the film lacked flavor for me. It was slow and bland and the payoff just wasn't good enough to justify the pacing. I think I may be a bit generous with a 7.5/10. Worth seeing, maybe worthy of a matinee, but you can wait for it streaming and not miss anything.