The Great Actor’s Last Film

Daniel Day-Lewis does not act roles, he inhabits them. Now, in his self-proclaimed last movie role, he is Reynolds Woodcock, a famous couturier to the rich and famous in London’s extravagant post-World War II in Paul Thomas Anderson’s gorgeous meditation on the tyranny of creativity, “Phantom Thread.”

Woodcock is a man of strict routine, and Day-Lewis’s stony handsomeness and controlled body language make him a man of studied silence, perfectly prepared meals — food is important in the film, especially breakfast; never has the sound of someone eating toast been so important — artistic concentration and secrets. 

Anderson, perhaps our most provocative filmmaker, is a man of secrets, too. He hides them in his work for audiences to discover and dig out from under the movie’s surface. In “Phantom Thread” that surface is the luxurious, creamy interior of Woodcock’s townhouse and atelier, which he shares with his sister, Cyril (Lesley Manville), who manages his routine and the series of women who are his muses and bedmates until he tires of them and they are quietly eased out of his sight and life. That is, until Woodcock meets Alma (Vicky Krieps), a waitress in a country inn. By the time he has completed his compulsively large breakfast, the two have seduced each other with looks and words, and Anderson’s game is afoot.

What Anderson conjures is a plot indebted to “Rebecca,” but one that goes into territory Hitchcock would never have visited. At first Alma does not spur Woodcock’s creative juices, even in bed. Then the designer sews a dress directly on Alma’s body and his fantasy of her, the perfect muse and lover, comes to life. We are soon in the midst of a battle of wills and power struggles. When Woodcock becomes fearful of Alma, Cyril cannot persuade her to leave. She has invaded his life and routine, and she intends to stay there.

After Woodcock falls ill and Alma nurses him back to health, Anderson turns the film into a dark comedy. Sexual politics, relationships that thrive only after they are broken and put back together in a new way and the shift in dominance often necessary to achieve the renewal might have been hackneyed in other directors’ hands. In Anderson’s they are fascinating. 

Day-Lewis is magnificent: Just watch the way he makes putting on a pair of red socks an event. Manville is wonderful in a difficult role, and Krieps, a Belgian newcomer, is compelling. The film’s design is dazzling, the jazz-influenced score by Jonny Greenwood just right. But it’s Anderson’s mind and willful cunning that make “Phantom Thread” a spellbinding film. You may need to see it more than once to discover all its secrets.

“Phantom Thread” is playing widely.