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Phantom Thread: Screenplay

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82 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2017

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195 people want to read

About the author

Paul Thomas Anderson

19 books62 followers
Paul Thomas Anderson is a five-time Academy Award-nominated American filmmaker.

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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
Profile Image for Somo.
239 reviews7 followers
January 30, 2018
A toxic relationship dealt with a toxic solution.
Profile Image for Laura.
7,133 reviews606 followers
February 24, 2019
Set in 1950s London, Reynolds Woodcock is a renowned dressmaker whose fastidious life is disrupted by a young, strong-willed woman, Alma, who becomes his muse and lover.
Profile Image for Nick Martin.
302 reviews1 follower
July 3, 2023
1. Just butterflies
2. Staring contest
3. A quiet time
4. Barbara Rose
5. An ambush
6. Blewits
7. The four pip
8. There is an air
Profile Image for Realini Ionescu.
4,092 reviews19 followers
July 22, 2025
Phantom Thread, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson


Phantom Thread has been nominated for a remarkable six Academy Awards, including the important:

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role…
Best Director, Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Best Achievement in Costume Design and…

Best Picture

Viewers could feel that the Academy has been too generous.
If we consider that this film only had two Golden Globes and the BAFTA nominations do not include Best Picture, we could harbor doubts.

On the other hand, Phantom Thread has an impressive Metascore of Ninety, which means critics loved it.
They appreciated this work of art as nearly…perfect!

This viewer begs to differ.

There is of course a lot to admire in this motion picture.
Daniel Day Lewis is so accomplished, such an artist that he transcends the screen in many moments.

And yet, even at this performance the undersigned would say that it is not on a level with the now classic

My Left Foot

For this film, Daniel Day Lewis has been taking the role off the set and he refused to use his hands.
This has infuriated people near him.

One could wonder about the preparations to play Reynolds Woodcock, a renowned dressmaker.
Has Daniel Day Lewis taken materials and started to sow them, or at least make some…Phantom Threads?

The hero of this motion picture is a complicated man, with remarkable qualities, shadowed by equally large shortcomings.
Reynolds Woodcock is an artist, creator of fabulous dresses and royalty, the rich, movie stars love his work.

On the other hand, he can be so obnoxious, pretentious, arrogant, distant, rigid, derisive and lugubrious.
This is a main character that is so hard to like.

The problem for this onlooker is that Alma aka Vicky Krieps is also difficult to admire or sympathize with.
If Reynolds Woodcock has many advantages, admirable traits- well, at least his genius for designing clothes and drawing- what about the other main personage?

What traits does Alma have that could render her pleasant?
Difficult to say.

She appears to love Reynolds, but at the same time, it appears that she uses poisonous mushrooms for his diet.
Alma has little influence in the household controlled by Woodcock and his offensive sister, Cyril.

However, her manipulation does reach an extreme when she tries to poison the man she loves, with a dose big enough to incapacitate him, but not sufficiently large to kill him, in order to gain control over him.
At times, this feels like the archetypal love and hate bond, or maybe even a manifestation of the Stockholm syndrome.

The honest thing to do might be to admit that the meaning of most of this film escapes the undersigned.

Why is Alma risking the death of the man she is supposed to love?
Because in spite of the fact that she had worked in a restaurant, the precise knowledge of how much deadly mushroom powder one can add to the food must have surely eluded this simple woman.

This viewer finds it awkward to try to conclude regarding Phantom Thread, which has great scenes, but overall could be characterized as uneven.

Profile Image for Ranette.
3,471 reviews
January 17, 2022
A sucessful dress designer picks a shop girl to be his muse. He treats her badly as he did other women, but when he gets sick he needs her. This may be a case of munchhousens by proxie from the girl. Very interesting
Profile Image for Adelyn.
18 reviews1 follower
April 13, 2022
So it’s been made clear that paul thomas anderson is unable to make a single bad film
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews

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