There Will Be Blood

AroView: Rising to the challenge, overachiever Paul Thomas Anderson delivers some formidable filmmaking to match his grim, egocentric tale of burning ambition: a belligerent prospector (Day-Lewis, in an Oscar winning role) strikes black gold, profiting on his discovery to become one of America’s wealthiest oil tycoons.

Through striking, unearthed landscapes and an ever-present discord – potently, the standoff between capitalist and religious interests – this historical saga on frontier America sizzles from its opening images, paving the way for a fevered descent into murder and greed. All-consuming performances, exemplary production design, and a striking friction between the sonic and visual (the score courtesy of Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood) renders the film almost too big for the small screen - the mark of an unqualified epic. Based on the Upton Sinclair novel ‘Oil!’.

Synopsis: The story chronicles the life and times of one Daniel Plainview, who transforms himself from a down-and-out silver miner raising a son on his own into a self-made oil tycoon. When Plainview gets a mysterious tip-off that there’s a little town out West where an ocean of oil is oozing out of the ground, he heads with his son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier), to take their chances in dust-worn Little Boston.