Phantom Thread

[zomgmouse]

Laughing at his hypersensitive reaction to her noise, no? The audio is edited to make her noise quite unrealistically loud so i took it as to be coming from his perspective.

Yeah but the laughter happened at the noise not at his reaction.

[marquis_de_sad]

When I said insane breakfast I meant the one he ordered from her in the hotel.

As for the toast noise, we're clearly supposed to find his oversensitiveness funny, not the idea of the act of buttering toast making a sound.

[Z]

Yeah but the laughter happened at the noise not at his reaction.

That's what I mean though; for me, the level of the noise was his immediate reaction, it's signalling an strop from DDL as opposed to mocking her classlessness.

I do think the film does have a bit of a problem with the Alma character in general though, is she meant to be some kind of primitive country woman who just has an instinctual good read of him? Is she meant to be the straight person bringing a semblance of reality to this whole bubble they're in?  Is she meant to be some kind of vague mother figure and fuck all else?
I haven't a fucking notion what she was meant to be beyond a figure to embrace him and his kink.

[zomgmouse]

That's what I mean though; for me, the level of the noise was his immediate reaction, it's signalling an strop from DDL as opposed to mocking her classlessness.

I agree, but I was referring to the reaction of the audience in the session I was in - they were laughing at her, I felt.

[Wet Blanket]

Having listened to his Adam Buxton interview I've warmed to PTA, but it confirmed my suspicion that he wasn't taking the material seriously. To me it's a waste of such a meticulous recreation of a 1950s melodrama to then be delivered with such a smirk, but then I have this issue with some of the Coen brothers' work too,

They spend a lot of time discussing the breakfast scene, but that struck me as an anachronism. I don't believe a stuffy seaside tea-room in 1950s England would allow you to order off-menu like that, no matter how poshly imperious you were. They hardly let you do that even now. I also don't think such a studiously U English toff would order scones for breakfast, or that such an establishment would have lapsang tea.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I think if he took it entirely seriously it'd be tediously po-faced. But then I'm probably not the only one here who probably wouldn't have given this film the time of day if they'd seen the exact same trailer with no mention of it being a PTA film.

[Wet Blanket]

I don't necessarily think the two options are ironic and po-faced. it seemed to be circling Rebecca/Vertigo territory and there was room for a riveting psychodrama.

Another insight I picked up from the Buxton podcast was how Anderson and Day Lewis spent a long time batting the character between them until "it got to the point where we realised we had to get [the script] finished" - and I think you could tell that they'd had great fun inventing the character of Woodcock, at the expense that the strange relationship between him and Alma was (to me) underdeveloped, the mushroom thing little more than a daft macguffin.

[marquis_de_sad]

Yes, agreed. In the Buxton interview PTA talks about getting actors to develop lines and so on, and to me the finished product looks very much like they sorted out all the details but neglected the big picture.

[Glebe]

Mark Kermode's review has made me want to give it another look... I was impressed by it overall, but yeah, the ending lacked a bit punch. I thought of A Clockwork Orange too with them zooming down the country lane bit.

[Bence Fekete]

Only watched half of this movie because for the other half I was asleep. 

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Is that a clever way of saying you found it boring, or were you genuinely tired at the time?

[Bence Fekete]

Clever's a bit strong. 

I may come back to PT on account of already being a big PTA fan (confusing acronyms).  But yes, on first attempt I thought this was annoyingly and pedantically dull and self-involved.  Soporifically so, in fact.  Every scene was a repeat of everything that had already been established.  Whereas you can pick any random 10 minutes from his first 5 films and I'm glued to the spot with curiosity. 

Not so PT.

[Namtab]

Need to see this again. First half I was unsure, but then it went mental in the second half and I completely fell for it.

[selectivememory]

Saw this today and loved it. Found it compelling and it was very funny in places. Performances were all superb, and beautifully directed as always. The Master is my absolute favourite of PTA's films, but this one is up there.

[Keebleman]

First PTA movie I've enjoyed since There Will Be Blood.  One of those very few period movies where you feel you're getting a real sense of the time rather than just watching a lot of actors in fancy dress ("The crockery was exactly the same as it was on the real Titanic," I heard some dozy prop master blathering about during a braindead Radio 4 documentary on that film, as if getting the crockery right counts for anything when the moment Kate, Leo etc open their gobs we're back in 1997).

There were a couple of jarring notes - too many eff-words, lapsang in an austerity Britain guesthouse - but not so many that they significantly harmed the film.  For a period movie there was an impressive lack of name-dropping too, as its usually one of the easiest ways thick directors and their thick viewers can get a handle on the setting.  (Having the Belgian Royal Family in it doesn't count as name-dropping in my book.)

Looking at the list of awards and nominations it has received I was really surprised Vicky Krieps has been almost totally overlooked.  Somehow she made a young woman in a foreign country suddenly whisked away by an intimidating and much older man into his bizarre, high stakes, high tension world where she refuses to crumble despite intense pressure, into a completely plausible character.  And I was amazed to learn she's in her mid-30s.  I thought she was 22 at most.

[Namtab]

Yeah, Krieps was probably my favourite performance in the whole film. Completely holds her own in this overwhelming and strange world around her.

[Blinder Data]

I thought this was great. His best since TWBB (though I should rewatch all his films really). Lovely music, amazing performances. I agree it might have been overlit though - on 70mm, any shot that involved looking out the window was painful on the eyes.

I sort of echo the thoughts about not being sure PTA is making the most of his abilities with these sort of dreamy, rather passive films but this was his most successful in a while. Made me think a lot about relationships, creativity, etc.

9/10

[Kishi the Bad Lampshade]

Just saw this and enjoyed it a lot. I found it hard to let myself get into it at first, because it reminded me so much of Eddie Izzard's parody of British films ("What is it, Sebastian? I'm arranging matches"). But I got sucked into the world and it really is a great example of show-don't-tell; every look or movement seemed to have multiple meanings that would probably make it great for a rewatch. Since most of PTA's other films are set in impressive scenery and high-drama situations it's really great to see how well he does with just telling a small story about a couple of characters interacting with each other. Excellent performances as well.

Having said that, I'm not sure how I feel about the last few minutes. The almost-final scene where she's making the omelette was really nicely done but after that it felt just too explicit (in the exposition sense not the rudey sense) for such a subtle film, as if their dynamic had just been reduced to some sort of S and M kink, albeit an emotional one rather than a sexual one. I wasn't convinced by the happy end either, I get that it was probably supposed to be deliberately a little unrealistic and uneasy but it just felt like it didn't quite know how to end or what to say about the relationship in the end.