There Will Be Blood (2007)

Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) digs for oil in the early twentieth-century American West, builds a business, and tries to monopolize everything. This man is frightening from start to finish. Frighteningly capable, frighteningly relentless, frighteningly alone. My rating is ★4.0. The 158 minutes are heavy, but as long as Daniel Day-Lewis is on screen, the eyes refuse to look away.

What it’s about — A portrait of a man possessed by oil

The first twenty minutes contain almost no dialogue. Plainview digs alone, finds silver, is injured at the bottom of a well, and climbs out — all in silence. He discovers oil and expands his operation. His encounter with preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) becomes the central conflict for the rest of the film. The two men despise each other while exploiting each other, and over decades that relationship grows increasingly toxic. Plainview generates no sympathy from the start. The way he treats his son, handles competitors, and persuades local communities is calculated and cold. Yet the inability to look away from this man for 158 minutes comes down to the fact that his coldness reads as a sharp portrait of the origins of American capitalism.

Direction — A camera trained on the face instead of spectacle

Paul Thomas Anderson’s direction is aimed at character rather than spectacle. There are scenes of oil wells burning and exploding, but what the film is genuinely focused on is Plainview’s face — where ambition, contempt, and rare glimpses of vulnerability intersect. Jonny Greenwood’s music creates a strange, unsettled atmosphere; that music determines the energy of the entire film.

Performance — A character Daniel Day-Lewis lives

Daniel Day-Lewis won the Academy Award for Best Actor for this role. The way he inhabits a character is visible throughout the set. Plainview’s distinctive diction, gait, and gaze create a completely self-contained human being. Paul Dano plays Sunday as apparently weak but provoking Plainview in his own way.

What the film says — The loneliness American capitalism arrives at

Plainview is read as a figure who symbolizes the origins of American capitalism — someone who eliminates competitors, dissolves community, and uses even his own son as an instrument of wealth. Where he arrives at the end is the most extreme form of wealth and success, and the most complete form of loneliness. The film’s final scene is the culmination of all of this.

Ratings & reception

IMDb scores it 8.2 and Rotten Tomatoes gives it 91%. It won Academy Awards for Best Actor and Best Cinematography, and received nominations in six categories including Best Picture. TMDB holds it around 8.1, and it is consistently cited as one of the best films of the 2000s.

What doesn’t quite work

The 158-minute runtime and deliberately slow pacing do not suit every viewer. The approach — focused on the character itself rather than dramatic events — can be hard going for audiences seeking narrative entertainment. Some find the back half monotonous until the explosive final scene.

Verdict

This is a film you watch for Daniel Day-Lewis’s performance. And that performance fully justifies the reason. The epic Paul Thomas Anderson has constructed about the origins of American capitalism is not easy, but it stays with you. The film is loosely adapted from Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil!, but focuses far more on the character of Plainview than on the original’s political message. Daniel Day-Lewis effectively retired from acting after this film (he would later officially announce retirement after Phantom Thread in 2017), and this work remains one of the most extreme and memorable examples of what his acting can do. If you want to see how a single actor can lift a film into an entirely different dimension, this film is the answer. ★4.0.

Recommended for

• Those who admire Daniel Day-Lewis’s acting
• Viewers who enjoy slow, weighty epic dramas
• Those interested in films about American history and capitalism