There Will Be Blood (2007)

Recommended

USA

Feature Film

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Writers: Paul Thomas Anderson, Upton Sinclair

Cinematographer: Robert Elswit

Composer: Jonny Greenwood

Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J O'Connor, Ciaran Hinds, Dillon Freasier, Russell Harvard

Anderson’s brash and dazzling yet rather cold adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel, Oil! – a tale of greed, corruption, oil, and religion in early 20th century America – almost fatally focuses almost entirely on Day-Lewis’s psychopathic oilman with very little humanity creeping in to proceedings, O'Connor’s beautifully understated and unfortunately rather brief turn being a notable exception, but there’s still much to admire: Elswit’s refined photography, Greenwood’s truly stunning score, and some good if occasionally overwrought performances combine to form a convincing and powerful if disappointingly inhuman film. Iain.Stott