Review of There Will Be Blood (2007) by Lulus. — 22 Feb 2008

I have heard a lot of people cite the acting in this movie as a reason for a hands-down 10. I, however, look at a film as a whole. I judge art according to its contribution to society as a whole... Art, after all, is derived from life and not the other way around; I don't see a chicken-or-the-egg conundrum.

So I can't accept a film that seems like cinematic and theatrical masturbation. Yes, the actors in it did excellent jobs. Yes, the elements of cinematography, lighting, and music were original and innovative.

But did it affect me? Did it even affect anyone in the entire theatre? The work *as a whole* was ineffectual, anticlimactic, uncompelling, and unrelatable. I'm not even interested in the characterization of Daniel Plainview.

The glimpses of the shards of his humanity were too few and too distant for me to care about him; and a person that monstrous provokes me only to marvel briefly and incomprehendingly at his monstrosity.

I want to be as far away from Daniel as possible, and I want to forget the movie. I'm not against "weird" movies or movies that require a long attention span, but I perceived a vagueness in the characters and story that seems to come from a lack of specificity in purpose.

.. and if there was a specific subtext in the minds of the actors and and a specific intent in the mind of the director--sorry, it was not conveyed. This objectivity wouldn't be so bad except that at times the movie leads the viewer to believe they should be understanding some kind of message.

There Will Be Blood: you fail at communicating.