"Phantom Thread," starring Daniel Day-Lewis in, he has said, his last role, is the story of a selfish, headstrong haute couture designer. While Paul Thomas Anderson's movie is meticulously constructed and exquisitely performed, it is ultimately self-indulgent and morally empty. The focus is on the central character, a man driven by the impulse to create, but Anderson never explores Reynolds Woodcock's (Day-Lewis) motives or the ideas behind his creations. We see more about his jealous reaction to a customer buying dresses elsewhere and his irritated reaction to toast being buttered too loudly.
We learn early in the film that Woodcock tires easily of his live-in lady friends and that it is his capable sister Cyril (Lesley Manville) who not unkindly informs his latest that her services are no longer required. Woodcock visits the country where Alma (Luxembourg actress Vicky Krieps), a waitress, catches his attention. Soon she becomes the next lady to rotate in. However, she has no intention of rotating out and she ultimately proves that the submissive is really the dominant in their relationship. Unfortunately, this twist and the nutso ending really ruins the movie. Day-Lewis is extraordinary, of course. And Manville's Cyril is shrewd but not unsympathetic to the people she has to manipulate. Krieps is fine as Alma, who wants what she wants the way she wants it, not necessarily the way he wants it. Nonetheless "Phantom Thread" is a disappointment.
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