Reportedly Daniel Day-Lewis’s last film, Phantom Thread gives him ample
opportunity to employ his bewitching eyes and occasional day-brightening smile
to great effect as 50s English haute-couture designer Reynolds Woodcock. He and
his sister Cyril, the marvelously icy, efficient, and ruthless Lesley Manville,
run a successful business as dressmakers to aristocracy. Cyril oversees daily
operations, leaving Reynolds free to design, to imagine, and to insert a little
of himself into each garment.
The film opens with him at the end of an affair - the young
woman pleads at breakfast for any acknowledgement, but he will not even glance at
her. Cyril disposes of her. He goes to a seaside town for a change of pace, and at
a restaurant is served by Alma, Vicky Krieps, a refreshingly vital
young woman willing to be with him, but grounded enough in herself not to
surrender completely to his tastes and demands. This of course makes her highly
desirable - she carries her certainty the way he carries his secrets, and they
make an excellent combination.
This film is about secrets. Early on, Reynolds reveals that
in the labor of creating his mother’s wedding dress (to her second husband), he
hid stitched words in parts of the garment. He continues to do that, in
a way that suggests both a claim on the wearer and a blessing on her life. Alma
can only match him by having her own secrets, and, satisfyingly, she does. Hers too are about exerting possession.
As their relationship deepens, she joins his corps of
dressmakers, primarily as his model - it’s not clear what sewing skills she has
in a business where every stitch is placed by hand. Cyril is always there. Alma is
given a bedroom next door to Reynolds in the house that’s also their workshop,
but that door between rooms is a barrier - Cyril ensures everyone knows their
place. She and her brother are partners as deep as any married couple - their
creative output depends on the fusion of their personalities in a common
enterprise. It’s not a pairing that welcomes intrusion.
And yet, Alma is not content to be the model, the muse. She
wants more - she wants a full relationship with Reynolds, including love and
respect. Watching her conduct herself with enviable surety, the audience is in
her corner - we want her to insinuate herself into that rigid couple, to earn a
place in their small closed world. If Cyril is the canvas on which this story
is told, and Reynolds the brushes, Alma is the paints, arranged by his hand but displaying colors that are hers alone. It is this balance that makes
Anderson’s film brilliant.
