Afraid to walk in on a movie that seemed so agonizing long, I took a chance. What a great idea it was. After seeing Atonement with no battle scenes, and getting heart broken by the dehumanization ending with No Country for Old Men, I only hoped for something better. Critics were claiming this were the best movies of the year along with TWBB, or maybe there just wasn't anything else better out.
Daniel Day-Lewis stole the screen as Daniel Plainview. He was the epitome of greed, while Eli was the sum of fake religion. It was an amazing movie, along with the score and acting. Most of all I enjoyed the settings of the various time periods.
From the opening scene that allowed the audience a quick view of the hardships of being down in a whole looking for treasure, to the last line of "I'm finished."
Sure there were parts that were hilarious to me, but that's who I am, I won't go into detail though. I was a bit weary since I heard some critics didn't enjoy the ending, I myself found it to be quite a fitting end to such a storyline. The characters were both equal with goodness and evil. Greed controlled but their intentions and well.....brought them both to ruin, if not monetarily then physically and mentally.
Eli's role as the fake prophet was the one I hated. He did no good, while Daniel actually made the town a little better place to live in.
There is no good vs evil theme. Daniel doesn't even battle himself, his confession to hating everyone makes him more of a lovable character than Eli, who is trying to convince others around he is not a fake. Although that is exactly what Daniel is doing. Both characters are out for themselves but claim to be for the better of those around them. It is funny to see battle it out between each other. There lives are completely different, yet exactly the same.
Oh btw Eli and Paul are twins, at first I thought Eli had a bi-polar or split personality disorder but after reading a few things, the director had confirmed that Eli was a twin.
That was another thing that stump me along with H.W trying to kill Henry after reading the diary. I wondered if he knew how to write, because if he did that would've sure made a lot of things easier for everyone if he had a pencil and paper. It is surprising that Daniel killed Henry because he had used his adopted son as a business ploy and only he knew who Henry was. That struck me kind of weird that he did that.
All in all this was definitely one of the best movies of the year. I found it fitting 1927 was the last year in the film because that was when the book was written from which it was adopted. Also the many movie props and a look at the life of being an oil digger during that time period made the movie that much better.
There were many things about this movie that I enjoyed. The music(although I believe the key theme song was stolen off of Lost and one other song was from ARVO PART), sound effects, props, setting, time period, acting, and the great storyline of evil vs evil....but in a religious vs business way. Business vs religion, but both need each other to survive and actually thrive when working together as shown in the movie.
