Here’s
the next best picture nominee. While it’s
certainly beautifully-made and features some excellent performances, I don’t
know that I’d quite rate it that high.
Personally, when it comes to best picture, I probably would have given
its slot to something else.
Reynolds
Woodcock is a renowned dress designer in 1950s London, both brilliant and
temperamental. He meets Alma, his latest
muse, working in a café, and the two begin a complicated, often tempestuous
relationship that’s at least as much about Reynolds’s work as it is about the
attraction/affection between them. To
borrow a line from The Last Five Years,
Alma isn’t sure she’s content with merely “trotting along at the genius’s heels,”
and she wrestles with what to do about their relationship.
In some
ways, the dynamic between Reynolds and Alma reminds me of George and Dot from Sunday in the Park with George
(evidently, I’m getting really musical-theatre-y with this review,) with her
unsure where and how much the lines between muse and lover blur. I like that aspect of Alma’s story – and more
than anything else, the film is Alma’s
story – the struggle between her feelings for Reynolds and her need for more
than the role he assigns her. I also
like the more personal side of Reynolds’s love of dresses, especially the
stories of sewing/designing from his youth that he tells Alma about, and the
slightly chilly but very entangled relationship he has with his sister interests
me.
All that
said, I find this to be another good-but-not-great film. It’s really
slow (I was amazed to check my watch and realize it was only about half over,)
and in the end, it doesn’t say too much we haven’t already heard about
difficult artistic geniuses. It’s not a
movie I expect to stick with me for a long time.
Still, it
is a beautiful film to take in, even if the story doesn’t entirely hold my
attention. The costumes are predictably
gorgeous (pretty easy bet that it’ll win there,) and the production design on
the whole is really well done. Daniel
Day-Lewis is of course great as Reynolds, particular and introspective and
exacting. I also really like Vicky
Krieps, who I wasn’t familiar with, as Alma, a young woman navigating how she
fits into this couture artist’s world.
In addition to Lewis’s lead actor nod, Lesley Manville, who plays
Reynolds’s sister Cyril, is up for best supporting actress. I’ll admit that surprises me a little – while
Manville is very good, there isn’t much about the character/performance that
particularly stands out to me.
Warnings
Language,
drinking/smoking, sexual references, and thematic elements.
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