written and directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Ciarán Hinds
seen: 21st July, 2009
The doors of perception opened by the film's soundtrack showed me far more interesting landscapes than the film itself, although I must admit it can be a bit difficult to separate the influence of one ingredient from another.
Day-Lewis is not the type of actor whose style I would find appealing. In fact, my opinion of him is balancing between "I don't care at all" and "I find him strangely annoying". His character is a man that stops at nothing - a philosophy I don't understand and the thought of those adhering to it running around among us makes me scared. Paul Dano is a different story. His appearance always makes me curious about what's about to come to light. His psychotic fanatic is a dexterous piece of work and I find the decision to confront him with DDL's intimidating presence both rather clever and not so clever as he appears to be too overpowered, especially in the later stages of life (where it really matters).
But the film provoked me enough to leave with a revelation: I don't enjoy films with actors performing their hearts out the way the Academy likes to award Oscars for. I take delight in more stoic, inward-oriented performances. I'm glad Anderson helped me realize it. But there are exceptions for everything, of course.
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