PINS AND NEEDLES

          According to press reports, Daniel Day-Lewis learned to butcher for his role in Gangs of New York, toted a 12-pound Kentucky rifle wherever he went when he was playing Natty Bumppo in The Last of the Mohicans, and for his latest picture, Phantom Thread, acquired enough skill at tailoring to design and make a dress in order to play the protagonist, a London fashion designer named Reynolds Woodcock.  The famous Method often engages actors in that sort of preparation, research, and absorption, and apparently Day-Lewis more than qualifies as a Methodist.

From its beginning the film establishes the character of its protagonist as a meticulous and annoying fussbudget, grooming himself carefully, irritably reacting to the small noises of his girlfriend’s breakfast while sketching designs, a process that repeats throughout the picture.  The simple plot takes Woodcock to his country house, where in a restaurant he orders a huge, complicated meal from a waitress named Alma (Vicky Krieps), whose memory for his order, German accent, and general appearance impress him enough to invite her to dinner and bring her back to his house; there he and his sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) measure her minutely and judge her a perfect model for his dresses.  He hires Alma and brings her back to his London home, where a fleet of seamstresses work on his designs.

The rest of the movie pretty much revolves around the relationship among the three people, conducted in the midst of and against the background of his work.  The low level of action, the tiresome sensitivity of the chief character, and the puzzling relationship between him and his model make for a rather dull and repetitive series of actions.  After hiring her as a model, he takes Alma as his lover, and she assumes something like a special place in the house, with some competition from Cyril, who manages everything, including her brother’s love affairs.  When their relationship begins to founder, beginning typically with his annoyance with the noise she makes buttering her toast, Alma takes some drastic and surprising steps to cement the bond.

Phantom Thread seems a strange little work to incite the sort of praise the usual ravers lavish on films starring Daniel Day-Lewis, like Gangs of New York and There Will Be Blood.  Then again, the director is the also highly praised Paul Thomas Anderson, who also gave us the ridiculous Boogie Nights and the pretentious nonsense of Magnolia and yes, There Will Be Blood.  Unlike Anderson’s previous “big” movie, this one settles into something like a Henry James novella, with a small, static plot, a limited cast of characters, and a central couple joined in an ambiguous symbiosis, each dependent on the other in a generally unhealthy way.

Whatever his qualifications as a butcher, Indian fighter, or dress designer, Daniel Day-Lewis turns in a generally one-note performance, establishing the essentially unpleasant personality of this selfish, controlling, hypersensitive artist, and pretty much sticking to it all the way through the picture.  As Alma, Vicky Krieps looks nothing like anyone’s ideal as a perfect model; plain, chunky, with the look of a Swiss milkmaid, she would hardly rival the tall, slim, stylized women who display designer creations on runways all over the world.  On top of all that, at least to this untutored observer, even the dresses Reynolds Woodcock designs don’t look all that great either, rather more dowdy than stylish, and certainly not distinctive or memorable, which actually fairly well describes Phantom Thread.