Limitations of There Will Be Blood

1. As a character study, its really just about the life of a character, Daniel Plainview.  If you dont particularly find his character intrinsically interesting and engaging then this movie does nothing for you.

2. Daniel Day-Lewis' portrayal of Daniel Plainview is so large that the character Eli Sunday never seems to be a true rival of his.  

The biggest reason I struggled with this film is it seems to resist traditional analysis.  For example, any time Plainview and Sunday are slapping eachother, I am asking if this is symbolic or some kind of social commentary about capitalism and religion.  Instead, it seems that what you see is what you get.  Plainview is competitive and is simply squashing out Eli Sunday, who is never really a great rival for Plainview, and hes really just squashed like a bug throughout the entirety of the movie.  He has a minor win when he gets some of Plainview's oil money, and his greatest albeit temporary triumph is when he makes Plainview admit one of his greatest insecurities, which is that he abandoned his child, although it could be argued that Plainview did what was best for the boy and sent him to a school for the deaf.

Still, if this is supposed to be a clash between two great and powerful forces, it fails, because noone who watches this movie is ever convinced that Eli Sunday poses any kind of threat or could ever hang toe-to-toe with Daniel Plainview.  Therefore, in my opinion, this movie fails to engage as the viewer is never drawn in to this rivalry, its just all Daniel Plainview mopping the floor with Paul Dano.  Alternatively, if this is an artistic choice, say Daniel Plainview takes this boy who is not even in the oil business as a threat and must squash him, Im still not engaged.  I get it, Daniel Plainview has a competition in him, he wants not only to succeed but see others fail.

If we compare this to something like Wall Street.  Gordon Gekko is a similar character to Daniel Plainview, I think.  But Gordon Gekko represents Wall Street, whereas Martin Sheen represents the blue collar working class.  Charlie Sheen is thrown in the mix, and has the dilemma and drama to work out, realizing that his old man offers real value to society, he does the right thing and brings Gekko down and saves Sheen's company.  This is the kind of symbolism that There Will Be Blood seems to consciously lack, and perhaps its more realistic.  This seems to be the case for most people who have responded well to the film, chronicling the life of this character.  For me, this does very little.  

Daniel Plainview is a self-driven, powerful, competitive by nature, greedy force who is possible the face of capitalism at the turn-of-the-century America.  He wins, but is never happy.  He gains enough money to isolate himself, but all the wealth of the world doesnt make him any happier than when he was churning the mud in the mineshaft.  

To me this is another case of, really?  Thats it?  Thats all there is to this movie?  This is a man who is all consumed by his work and all the success in the world will not make him happy.  Thanks, for Scarface retold in the turn-of-the-century America, but I'll pass.