Phantom Thread

seen on 17 February 2018

Paul Thomas Anderson directs a film concerning Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day Lewis), a (fictional) 1950s fashion designer whose personality and intense concentration on his work exists in a world buttressed by the steely efficiency of his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville). Into this carefully managed terrain comes a new model, Alma (Vicky Krieps), whom Reynolds meets by chance in a country inn where she is waitressing, and who rapidly becomes his new and indispensable muse. The power plays and shifting attitudes of these three form the major interest of the film.

Reynolds has had muses before - the film opens with one being ruthlessly dismissed after causing a fuss over breakfast - but he has always maintained a rigid control over the situation, by being emotionally withdrawn and relying on his sister to judge when her intervention was needed. Daniel Day Lewis gives a masterly portrayal of this kind of passive-aggressive reticence, the fastidiousness linked to a childishness that allows him to seem invincible. Lesley Manville, in turn, invests Cyril with a briskness which may be mistaken for acquiescence in her brother's foibles, but which conceals a formidable grasp of her own strength which, when needed, is implacable. 

Into this curious situation comes Alma, apparently biddable, but harbouring her own desire for recognition and status, and not at all willing to buckle under the constraints. In another breakfast scene, in which Reynolds complains that she is being too noisy in buttering her toast (the soundtrack pointing up his hypersensitivity on the matter), she observes that he is being too fussy. When he leaves, and Cyril suggests that Alma might like to breakfast somewhere else in future, she remarks pointedly that she still thinks he is too fussy. Her reactions and interventions escalate beyond this level of opposition to something far more drastic; by the end of the film she is married to Reynolds (who had proclaimed himself a 'confirmed bachelor' at their first dinner together) and they are colluding in a rather creepy sort of mutual dependency. Vicky Krieps's performance is assured, ostensibly giving little away, yet showing that Alma has a dangerous and not particularly likeable determination of her own.

The film is leisurely and episodic; it is enfolded in the beautifully observed setting of a couture house replete with seamstresses trooping in each morning and climbing several flights of stairs to the attic workroom, deferentially greeting the master and his sister-manager if they happen to be visible. The scenes in which various clients visit reveal the pressures of the business, both when the client is favoured and when she is not, while a fashion show conducted in the reception rooms of the house is a reminder of how things were done before catwalks were invented.

The fragility of even the most persistent efforts at controlling one's circumstances and environment is pitilessly examined as the relationship between Reynolds and Alma develops and mutates; when Cyril apparently concedes that Alma must have her place in the menage, she issues two devastating put downs to her brother which betoken a serious realignment of the household dynamics. Only Reynolds's own collusion in Ama's strategy, revealed towards the end of the film, creates a shockwave to match.