This film is so expertly directed, so wonderfully acted, so well shot and so well designed, that it is very easy to overlook its mediocre narrative, and mistake it for a masterpiece. However, the story, loosely (but not loosely enough) adapted from a ridiculous and horribly dated novel by Upton Sinclair "Oil", is so simplistic and far-fetched, it drags this otherwise brilliantly realized movie down the drain. All characters are completely devoid of any complexity - they are like refugees from a Soviet socialist realist drama from the Stalinist era. They lack any psychological credibility whatsoever. Paul Thomas Anderson is a wonderfully gifted filmmaker; his mistake was in trying to adapt a very crappy piece of stupid socialist propaganda about evil Yankee exploiters.
February 2, 2007
There Will Be Blood (2007) **
This film is so expertly directed, so wonderfully acted, so well shot and so well designed, that it is very easy to overlook its mediocre narrative, and mistake it for a masterpiece. However, the story, loosely (but not loosely enough) adapted from a ridiculous and horribly dated novel by Upton Sinclair "Oil", is so simplistic and far-fetched, it drags this otherwise brilliantly realized movie down the drain. All characters are completely devoid of any complexity - they are like refugees from a Soviet socialist realist drama from the Stalinist era. They lack any psychological credibility whatsoever. Paul Thomas Anderson is a wonderfully gifted filmmaker; his mistake was in trying to adapt a very crappy piece of stupid socialist propaganda about evil Yankee exploiters.
