Paul Thomas Anderson’s PHANTOM THREAD is a love story most preoccupied with toxicity, and how it threads its way into attraction, and yet somehow not tragedy but sly, mordant comedy. So gorgeously tactile it makes poison look appetizing (metaphorically and otherwise). It’s a film very much about how the toxicity of patriarchy weaves its way into art and the creative impulse, poisoning it. If that sounds dour, it’s not. It’s an improbably wonderful exploration of such darknesses. It’s a lovely performative farewell for Daniel Day-Lewis, but equally compelling are his foils Vicky Krieps and Lesley Manville, as two women who out-complicate our fussily complicated tortured male artist protag.
I adored the lush bitterness of it all. It’ll make you hungry for mushrooms and dark chocolate.
