There Will Be Blood is about Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day Lewis). This is a man with little to no morals. Everything he does is for power. More importantly, his control of oil. He builds himself up an empire of oil when one day young man comes to visit him with an interesting prospect. The town he lives in has oil seeping out of the ground. Daniel goes to the town and there he meets the brother of the young man who visited him, Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). Eli Sunday has his own congregation and wants power just as much as Plainview does. They just go different ways about getting it. Plainview with his oil empire and Sunday with his accusation that he is a false prophet. Heads collide and things happen in Plainview's life that builds up to an explosive ending.
From the opening shot of this movie, it is clear that this movie is about so much more than oil. It is about Plainview: the man who will do anything for power and the thing that shows that he has power: money. There is one scene in particular that shows how much he cares about human life. While his son is watching an oil pump before they have discovered oil underground, they find it and it causes his son to go blind. This doesn't matter to Plainview though. What matters is that they found oil. In fact, his sons new handicap eventually leads him to abandon his son.
Daniel Day Lewis gives one of the greatest performances of all time as Daniel Plainview. In this character he has shaped a character who views every man beneath him as dirt. The look in his eyes are all about power. How can he manipulate this man for his own profit? How can he milk this person for all they are worth to him? He uses family members simply so he can say he is a family man, which gives him a leg up on the competition. Anytime anybody gains a small amount of power above him there is a look of disgust and hatred. A want to kill and destroy that person. It can accurately be summed up in his line: "I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people." Lewis disappears into this role and is the perfect marriage of actor and character. Then there is Paul Dano who plays Eli Sunday. A false profit with the exact same ambitions as Plainview. Sunday is the only person to make Plainview look like a fool and from that point on, both of their destinies are sealed.
The directing in this movie shows the emergence of P.T. Anderson as more than just a very good filmmaker, but a master filmmaker. If he can keep this up, Anderson will one day be viewed along the lines of Kubrick who he is seemingly channeling in this movie. Anderson never makes one movement with his camera that doesn't have a point. That isn't just to show what is going on. In every single one of his shots there is more going on than just what you see or what you're told. He truly reaches a level of Kubrick in this movie, especially the superb final shot.
Much credit has to go to Upton Sinclair whose ideals and feelings are ever present throughout the movie. His ideals of what power and religion does to you are ever present and it is wonderful.
It is rare to see a movie this good on its first run. In fact, it has been a rare year because of how many great films came out. Not just great films, but films that will later become classics: like this and No Country. This is a powerful powerful film with a lot to say and one that needs more than one viewing. See it now.
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