TheRetroCritic

Paul Thomas Anderson's latest film, Phantom Thread , sees Daniel Day-Lewis play a respected fashion designer who meets a waitress and starts a rather awkward relationship with her. This is, as far as we know, probably the actor's final performance in a film. In contrast to the grim and intense There Will Be Blood , this new film seemed like a potentially lighter and less depressing effort. In a way, this is true since we're dealing with a man who makes dresses rather than a scary moustached man who sucks up oil "milkshakes" from the ground but this remains another typically unnerving and dark P. T. Anderson creation. The point of the film not being the dress-making itself as this isn't exactly a biopic, but rather everything else. It's the relationship between the fussy and closed-off yet undeniably talented Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) and waitress Alma (Vicky Krieps) that takes centre stage. Woodcock is shown to be a true artist and a perfec

Another year, another extended Chanel advert. Unfortunately, unlike Coco Before Chanel , this doesn't have much to work with. What we get is not so much a Chanel biopic as a vague Stravinski biopic awkwardly stuck inside a sexy Chanel bubble. The main problem is that, really, the film has nothing interesting to say: Chanel and Stravinski had an affair...they had sex...buy our perfume! This is literally it. Having said that, Jan Kounen does a remarkable job making such an empty narrative interesting. The cinematography is stylish and well crafted and the score is beautiful. A terrific scene involving a Stravinski concert going awry is definitely a highlight. There's good performances here. Anna Mouglalis' over-cool but genuinely manipulative and really pretty dislikable Chanel is a lot of fun and Mads Mikkelsen conveys a lot with the shameful 5 lines he was given to work with (!). His performance, although practically silent, is nevertheless the most compelling in the e