I'm always beating the Paul Thomas Anderson drum, as compared to the Wes Anderson drum (as I've lamented in the past, my students love the latter's quirkiness and are put off by the former's complexity). I should point out that neither of them are close to being my favorite directors, I just tend to like PTA a lot more than WA. Having said that, last night I watched a Paul Thomas Anderson film that I simply thought was over-praised: Phantom Thread. It's odd, because when I break it down I like all the component parts: great performances by Vicky Krieps (as Alma Elson), Daniel Day-Lewis (as Reynolds Woodcock), and especially Lesley Manville (as Cyril Woodcock); beautifully filmed; a haunting soundtrack. I found the characters completely unlikeable, and not unlikeable in a way that would teach a valuable lesson. Instead, they were simply vaguely unlikeable, and not interesting enough to make me want to dig deeper into personalities. I'm clearly in the minority here because it's considered one of the great films over the last couple decades, but I just never warmed to it. Obviously, I'll give it another try at a later date, and it may simply be that I wasn't in the right mood at the right time.
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