There Will Be Blood [2007]
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Dillon Freasier, Ciarán Hinds, Paul Dano
In the 1890s, Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis), a struggling silver miner, finds his true wealth in oil extraction while taking the orphaned child, H.W. (Freasier), as his own in order to create a family man image. In 1911, Plainview gets a tip on a valuable supply on the struggling Sunday family ranch in the impoverished Little Boston, California. In his quest to acquire the property, Plainview meets the sanctimonious Eli Sunday (Dano), the young reverend of the local church with his own ambitions for his diocese and the profit from the oil. As the oil drilling begin, Daniel struggles with different problems while his savvy ruthlessness gradually sinks into a slowly mounting malevolent madness.
I really liked this movie, even though the story is incredibly simple, and not really very surprising in any way, but it’s beautiful, and the cast is very strong. Even the almost demonic sermons given by Eli, which are bordering on the absurd, didn’t bother me, and actually fitted very well.
The first fifteen minutes are also beautifully shot, and give a really nice foundation of his personality; driven and not below getting his hands dirty in order to get what he wants. And all that without uttering a single word.