Phantom Thread

Should you decide to visit your local cinema to take in a showing of Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson's latest offbeat character study, you might want to make a bit more effort with your wardrobe than you're accustomed to for such outings. After spending 130 minutes totally immersed in the world of 1950s high fashion, I felt like an utter rube walking out of the cinema in my jeans and hoody combo.

Phantom Thread is as immersive as cinema gets. From its opening sequence, which takes us inside the House of Woodcock, a London fashion house run in quietly tyrannical fashion by renowned dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day Lewis), Anderson's film dismisses any thoughts we might have of our own world of 2018. As we witness Reynolds go ...

I saw Phantom Thread as part of a trio. We began watching this Oscar nominated movie at staggered intervals. I, from the beginning. The second, a half hour in. Then her partner, just past the half-way point. But all of us came to the same reaction when we'd been watching for what seemed like days only to realise there was still 30 minutes left: Lying on the cold, dirty floor, begging for it to end.

Prepare for the most heterosexual thing I have ever said: We had to watch YouTube clips of Arnold Schwarzenegger movie-kills and then the whole original Robocop as a palette cleanser after being forced to endure Phantom Thread. That's not hyperbole either, it felt genuinely necessary so that's what we did. I fear that we live in the worl...

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Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville and Vicky Krieps combine to deliver a work of great style and delicacy in this story about a London couturier to the rich and famous. "Reynolds Woodcock" lives with his sister "Cyril" in the disciplined and controlled environment he demands in order to be able to do his work as the leading creative dressmaker of his time. Enter "Alma" an aspiring, awe-struck apprentice with whom he falls in love - despite his own controlling instincts. The story evolves with purpose and depth; this isn't a straightforward love story by any means. Jonny Greenwood's score is brilliantly complementary to the gentle but dynamic pace of the narrative and, of course, it's great to look at too.