“Phantom Thread” – Auteur Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest effort is every bit as pretty as it is pretty empty. Daniel Day Lewis does his level best to single-handedly save the film with his method-acting superpowers, but he’s stranded spinning his wheels in a pretentious, go-nowhere mess that is not nearly as impressive as it obviously thinks it is. This is Lewis’ last performance, supposedly, and it is a sad note to see him go out on. Nothing happens. At all. People eat, people talk, people yell, people sew, and all of the sound and fury and food and design signify nothing. This is by far the most disappointing of the nine films nominated for Best Picture.
– Michael Olinger, March 1, 2018
