A slow & dark romance

Phantom Thread

*ing: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, Vicky Krieps

Rated: 5/10

Is it too bad or is it too good? As this movie by complex director Paul Anderson progresses slowly and inexorably, centred around a work OCD fashion designer of the 50s, the thought confounds you and by the end, the listless is plummelled into curious interest around a love story that is everything but an everyday romance.

On the look of it, you cannot but hate this man for his obsessive penchant for precision, routine, silence and perfection around clothes making.

Helmed by an impressive Daniel Day-Lewis in the role of Reynolds Woodcock, the London-based dress-maker for royalty, celebrities and alcoholic dowagers alike, the film can be classified as a dark romance budding between a rigid, self-centred and entirely unique fashion designer and his girlfriend-turned-muse-turned-helper who is much like a slave to his surroundings, his needs, his life and his work. But she does have a mind all her own which she asserts sometimes by feeding him poisonous mushrooms and sometimes by serving him like a lackey.

The film is slow but call it Anderson’s cinematic charisma, it grows on you without you even knowing why you got interested in what seems an insipid relationship angering you to the core. See it if you like to be with hatke cinema.