Let us get this out of the way- Phantom Thread is a beautiful film with a great premise and promise. A couture dress designer (Daniel Day Lewis) is demanding in the extreme and finds a muse (Vicky Krieps). He enjoys using her as a dress model and a companion, but she wants more. Along the way, the director, Paul Thomas Anderson, throws hints of intrigue starting with the title of the film. There are empty pretensions of dress-making as high art, secret messages sown into dresses and haunting memories. All of this leads to- exactly nowhere. Everything Lewis and Krieps do is recorded lovingly and meticulously on film with great mood music in the background. But there is no great reveal, no deep insight into human psyche, no higher truth. In the end it comes down to what a woman wants and what the man can live with. Lewis and Krieps are excellent, especially Krieps, but Lesley Manville as Lewis's sister has the thankless job of looking stern in every scene. Nothing in the film sticks with you when you leave the theater except the dresses, photography and the music; because Anderson has not come up with anything really interesting in the story. Unlike his "There Will Blood", which was a great film, Phantom Thread is a phantom film. It is a beautiful ghost of what should have been a really good film. See it if you wish to say goodbye to Daniel Day Lewis, but keep your expectations low.
