A phenomenally fucked-up romantic comedy, Phantom Thread manages to be pitch-black funny and profoundly disconcerting, sometimes within the same scene. Novelistic, mean, and funny, Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest is unlike anything else out there, and it’s great. At least, I thought so? As the end credits rolled, a distressed lady in front of me huffed out, declaring, “Well, that’s not the kind of love I like.”
Fair enough, lady! But there’s more truth in Phantom Thread’s love—a kind of love that’s as unavoidable as it is frightening and co-dependent—than in most feel-good films’ soulless romances. Phantom Thread’s love is between renowned dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and the significantly younger Alma (Vicky Krieps), a waitress Woodcock hastily claims as his muse, model, and lover. Woodcock can be charming, but he’s also a colossal asshole—casually cruel, obsessively prim, and ready to lose his shit when things aren’t exactly to his liking.
