* * * 1/2

Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Dillon Freasier, Kevin O’ Connor. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Screenplay by Paul Thomas Anderson from the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair. Rated R. 138 minutes. Paramount Vantage.

Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood, loosely derived from Upton Sinclair’s 1927 novel Oil!, is a ambitious and sprawling film charting the rise and fall of a self-made oil magnate whose obsession with greed and wealth topples himself and everyone around him. It is a hugely mounted experience that tackles big questions—the relationship between greed, power, money and religion, and the obsessions that erode the characters and souls of men. It has a dark, brooding heart and moral corruption at its core that is tough to shake. And yet, for all this complexity, There Will Be Blood remains easy to respect and difficult to like. It is a film about themes and directorial flourishes, not humanity—and fails to resonate as an effective drama.

The film’s arresting opening passages being in 1897, introducing us to Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a hard-driven man from nowhere relentlessly digging for gold and silver in a deep hole in the desert. He forages madly with a pick axe and dynamite, undeterred by a broken leg that doesn’t stop him from crawling miles to cash in a claim. Immediately, Anderson asserts a boldness of vision, eschewing dialogue for the film’s first 15 minutes as Plainview and motley crew set up homemade rigs and bury into the earth, revealing the discovery of bubbling crude.

An accident leaves an orphaned child in his care and the opportunity to market his venture as a "family business" to unsuspecting land owners, as father and son (Dillon Freasier) independently prospect the West pumping oil away from giants Standard and Union, with dreams of a pipeline to the coasts. Up to this point, the film is rich with discovery and a sense of self-made entrepreneurship. The oil flows, and Planview flourishes.

A proposition comes from young Paul Sunday (Paul Dano), whose family sits atop land that is rich in oil, prompting Plainview to buy the family out, to the concern of son Eli (also Dano), the town preacher, who brokers a deal for cash to build a new sanctuary for his devoted congregation, the Third Church of the Revelation. After a request to publicly christen the oil well is denied, fate is set in motion and a lifelong hatred between Plainview and Sunday takes root.

The greedy sins of the father are soon visited on the son as a devastating accident leaves the child deaf and later after abandoned, shipped off when he can no longer be of use. When he returns some time later, the damage is irreparable. And then there’s another character introduced in the interim who purports to be the long-lost, half-brother (Kevin O’Connor) of Plainview, in need of work, who may be hiding a few secrets of his own. It is at this point that the film, with the son out of the picture, begins to meander a bit and the spell starts to dissipate.

Anderson manages a striking tone and mood to the film, through use of foreboding string arrangements a visual austerity that manages several powerful sequences, most notably the explosion of an oil well and consequences thereof. It is an aesthetically pleasing film and an atmospheric departure for the director, whose previous films have often paid homage to Altman with their tangled, interconnected ensembles, focused more on characters and intimacy and less on the environment as character.

At its best, There Will Be Blood is monumental in its take on the American West and the spiritual toll paid by both Plainview and Sunday in their respective pursuits, which ultimately converge in two provocative scenes—one a baptism and the other a murder—requiring both men to denounce, in their own ways, their principles and convictions.

But a central story issue in There Will Be Blood is the inability for Plainview to evolve, which is fascinating in its own right and gives Day-Lewis plenty of obsession to chew on, but doesn’t ultimately make for a well-rounded character. As the picture ends, he is oblivious to the wreckage his life has become. And that is the point. It is a march to insanity, and the actor and director certainly get there.

Much has been made about Day-Lewis’ performance, the kind of rigorous, technically precise and mannered work that saps the spontaneity—and life—out of most scenes. An undeniably great actor, his work here is distancing and show-offy, a lesson in Method that’s interesting to watch but never once approaches anything remotely real. He employs a studied, auto-pilot approach to every scene—his eyes half squinted, his voice registering a predetermined cadence, bellowing to the rooftops, or at least the back row, throughout most of this film. Some may argue this deliberate artifice as being larger-than-life, but I won’t be one of them. In 138 minutes, he doesn’t calm down for a single scene. The performance is a stunt, and there isn’t a natural moment to this performance where you are unaware you are watching Acting unfold. He’s committed all right, but that doesn’t make it real.

Dano, the baby-faced young actor so effective in Little Miss Sunshine as the troubled teenaged son, gets middling results here. He’s as natural onscreen as Day-Lewis is artificial, and he certainly captures the magnetism and intensity of the charismatic young preacher on the rise. But he seems out of his element in the film’s final scene, a mano-a-mano bringing both men’s characters to their logical ends. Each actor goes so far over the top—particularly Day-Lewis in an embarrassing diatribe about a milkshake, flailing about, jerking around and throwing his voice and limbs spastically—that I was literally sucked out of the scene, focused on the scenery chewing and not the finality of the story.

With his Boogie Nights and Short Cuts casts, Anderson brilliantly coaxed flamboyant turns out of his ensembles—remember Tom Cruise in Magnolia?—without sacrificing the drama and realism.  Not so here. There Will Be Blood is a visionary film, just not an engaging one.

- Lee Shoquist