If you want to have a staring contest with me, you will lose.

 Continuing my trip down Empire’s top 100 films of the century so far…

• #92 - Baby Driver
  I generally really like Edgar Wright films, but just couldn't get into this one after the fantastic first 15 minutes.

Which brings us to Phantom Thread - a film about which I had quite mixed feelings because I generally tend to admire rather than enjoy both Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day Lewis films - and I'm not even entirely sure I even admire There Will Be Blood, which is their previous collaboration.  I was also not entirely convinced I'd relate to the 1950s fashion house setting - it's not exactly home territory for me.

But I actually really enjoyed it.  It's a very repressed, English kind of film (particularly for a US director) with a lot of meaningful glances and silences and it really suits the fashion house setting.  Daniel Day Lewis and Lesley Manville are fantastic (as you'd expect) but Vicky Krieps more than holds her own in such exalted company.  The plot is a bit strange, but not distractingly so which I have experienced with previous Anderson films - and it does sort of hang together at the end in a weird, creative-type kind of way.

The film, of course, looks fantastic - I loved all the houses and costumes involved (except maybe Reynolds' lilac pyjamas) and the period details are very well done.  The score is also very well done - Johnny Greenwood does a good job with these things.

Wikipedia actually has remarkably little to say about the film other than noting that the critics went wild for it - which does not surprise me in the slightest, except that, for once, I happen to agree with them!  All in all, a surprisingly enjoyable experience, which I think would benefit from a repeat viewing.

One film to go!