There Will Be Blood

There are many things to admire in Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 film There Will Be Blood.  Unfortunately, those things are folded into a story that is cold, distant, and unenlightening. We are spending nearly three hours following a man who hates humanity, cares only for money, and commits many crimes in the pursuit of it, none of which he ever gets held accountable for. Were this a code film, he would have to face justice for his actions, but even though the story it is based on came out in the 1920s, this film did not and is not beholden to that old rule. 

This can work to a film’s favor should there be a point to that kind of an ending, but Anderson seems to be more interested in crafting a tone and a setting than giving us a compelling lead character. What we do get is a frustrating look at a man who, fascinating as he is to watch, is shut off from any meaningful human interaction unless it can further line his own pockets.  We learn nothing about why he is this way, nor do we get any character growth along the way. I have had similar complaints in other Paul Thomas Anderson films but never to this degree. 

The film opens in 1898 where Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis)—a name that has to be satirical, maybe even self-inflicted, as he is anything but—finds silver while prospecting in New Mexico. He breaks his leg, falling into the well he has dug, and has to drag himself from the pit to the assay office to receive a silver and gold claim. Four years later, he discovers oil in California, but this discovery comes at a heavy price when one of his workers is killed in an accident, leaving behind an infant child. We learn nothing of what might have happened to the boy’s mother previously, but Daniel, seeing an opportunity, takes the boy as his own, using him as an emotional bargaining point in his business dealings. 

In 1911, Daniel is approached by Paul Sunday (Paul Dano), a young man who offers to sell him information about a plot of land that has oil, land that his family lives on. Daniel travels to this place, Little Boston, under the pretense of hunting quail with his son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier), now a preteen. The land has recently been the site of a small earthquake, and that has brought oil to the surface. Seeing this, Daniel approaches the Sundays, including Paul’s identical twin brother Eli, with a proposition to buy the land. The father, Abel, is willing to sell, but Eli holds out, pointing out that they are aware of the oil and want more than the small amount being offered. A deal is struck, and Daniel’s team comes in to start drilling.

Problems arise almost immediately, though. Eli is a local minister who practices faith healing. He offers to bless the well before the drilling begins, and while Daniel accepts the offer, when the time comes, he ignores Eli in front of the gathered observers. This sparks off a feud between Daniel and the preacher. Accidents occur almost immediately, with one man being killed and an explosion that causes H.W. to lose his hearing. On top of that, there is one family in the area that has refused to sell their land to Daniel, and while he believes initially that it won’t matter, later it will become obvious that that land is the key to pumping the oil out of the area without paying a fortune to the railroads or selling out to his competitors. In the mix of all of this, a man shows up claiming to be Daniel’s previously unknown half-brother and looking for work. Daniel will make his millions from the area, but at a significant cost to those around him.

When I first saw this film back in 2007, there was no doubt in my mind that Daniel Day-Lewis was going to get another Academy Award for this. But, like The Gangs of New York and, later, Phantom Thread, this is an amazing performance in service of a dislikable character. It is possible to admire the performance while disliking the character, and that is very much the case here. Daniel Plainview has no redeeming value whatsoever. Much like Billy Zane in Titanic, all we see are the bad traits. This is a man who represents greed, yet we don’t really know why. We don’t get his backstory nor his motivations beyond the need for wealth. 

When H.W. is deafened by the explosion, there are moments where there might be some humanity to him, especially when he is attacking Eli and accusing him of being a false prophet because he doesn’t heal the boy, but what we also see is him leaving the frightened boy behind while he goes to protect what he really cares about, his oil wells. When it becomes clear that the boy can no longer serve his purpose for the business, he ships him off on a train, intent on ridding himself of him. We get the sense that he’s only mad at Eli because H.W. cannot help him gain the trust of the townspeople anymore. 

There needs to be an emotional reason for me to stay with a character, especially in a film of such epic scale as this one. Hatred is not the right emotional reason, though. By the midway point, right around the time an older film would be having an intermission, I am at the point where I can no longer stay with him. I’m beyond believing there will be any redemption to his character, and even if there is, I no longer care. Now I’m just watching, waiting for some punishment to happen. When that doesn’t happen, I’m left with nothing but a film that gives me nothing to keep me engaged. Paul Thomas Anderson has given me a film that is beautiful to look at but ugly through and through. It’s a contradiction that feels intentional on the part of Paul Thomas Anderson but just doesn’t work for me.

I watched this film over the course of two days because I just couldn’t keep myself interested long enough to get through it in one sitting. Had the character of Daniel Plainview been fleshed out better, had I understood his motivations and not felt he was such a one-dimensional man who views everyone with equal disdain, including God, I wouldn’t have found this movie to be so tedious and frustrating. I have recommended other Paul Thomas Anderson films that also struggle with character development, but this one was above and beyond all those. 

This can be seen as a disparaging look at greed, ambition, and the rise of capitalism in America. Like the final act of How the West Was Won, we can see the vanishing of the American frontier in the pursuit of wealth. But that kind of pursuit leaves a person empty and we see that, too, in the final act of There Will Be Blood. Daniel has his wealth, his mansion, his bowling alley in the basement. But he has lost H.W. who refuses to work for him now that he has grown up, electing instead to leave for Mexico and find his own fortune away from Daniel. Daniel has no real friends or family. All he can do is wander his mansion and lash out when others come to him looking for help as Eli does in the last few minutes. This final scene is perhaps the most shocking of the film because of its casual brutality, both physical and verbal. It also is abrupt and refuses to let us linger on it before the credits call all of this to a close.

In the same way that I could respect George C. Scott’s portrayal of General Patton, I can respect what Daniel Day-Lewis is doing here. I can believe this kind of a man existed; still exists even. We watched just such a man weekly throughout the 1980s on the sitcom Dallas. But what J.R. Ewing had that Plainview doesn’t is layers. There were plenty of times in this film that we could have seen that. Instead, everything is cold and calculating. Without nuance, there is no excitement. Without character development, we are just watching a cardboard cutout going through the motions. Daniel Day-Lewis is perhaps the best actor of our generation, but there is only so much he can do with a character such as this.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Daniel Lupi, JoAnne Sellar, and Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Art Direction: Jack Fisk and Jim Erikson

Best Cinematography: Robert Elswit (won)

Best Film Editing: Dylan Tichenor

Best Sound Editing: Christopher Scarabosio and Matthew Wood

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Release Date: December 26, 2025

Running Time: 158 minutes

Rated R

Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano, Kevin J. O’Connor, Ciarán Hinds, and Dillon Freasier

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson