This is a movie about an off-the-charts fastidious man with a mother complex by the name of Reynolds Woodcock who is a world class London fashion designer. Woodcock has many of the predictable characteristics of a man with a mother complex: artistic sensibility, narcissism, compulsiveness, irritability, and the inability to maintain long-term relationships with women who never measure up.
Woodcock lives in an apartment within his fashion house. The house is fronted and managed by his sister Cyril, a tough-as-nails British matron who understands her brother fully, and manages him through his many mood swings and failed relationships. As the movie begins, Woodcock has tired of yet another of his many muses and the sister is dispatched to tell the girl the bad news that her man is never going to fall back in love with her.
Before long Woodcock meets Alma, woos her into his world, and the rest of the movie follows this relationship. Will Woodcock tire of Alma as he did all of the women before her? Will she be able to tolerate his off-the-charts obsessive compulsive disorder and unpredictable mood swings? We see scene after scene, and at times we are convinced this relationship is headed for the skids, while in others it is apparent these two have a deep and abiding love for one another.
Make no mistake. This is an unhealthy relationship. He is an obsessive-compulsive control freak, and she is a an extremely insecure nourisher who desperately needs him to need her to take care of him. Given their personality clash, it seems apparent that the relationship will devolve into darkness, and of course it does.
I will say no more out of respect for those who have not yet seen the movie. However, I will say that the final reveal was unbelievable to me. Given all we had learned about Woodcock's character throughout the film, I found it impossible to believe he would willingly compromise himself to the extent that he does in the end, and for me that made the ending a disappointment.
I forgive the ending because the film itself was so artfully made by director Paul Thomas Anderson, and the acting so spot on by all three leads (Daniel Day Lewis, Leslie Manville and Vickie Krieps), that Anderson could have ended the film by showing monkeys flying out of his backside and I still would have liked it.
Woodcock lives in an apartment within his fashion house. The house is fronted and managed by his sister Cyril, a tough-as-nails British matron who understands her brother fully, and manages him through his many mood swings and failed relationships. As the movie begins, Woodcock has tired of yet another of his many muses and the sister is dispatched to tell the girl the bad news that her man is never going to fall back in love with her.
Before long Woodcock meets Alma, woos her into his world, and the rest of the movie follows this relationship. Will Woodcock tire of Alma as he did all of the women before her? Will she be able to tolerate his off-the-charts obsessive compulsive disorder and unpredictable mood swings? We see scene after scene, and at times we are convinced this relationship is headed for the skids, while in others it is apparent these two have a deep and abiding love for one another.
Make no mistake. This is an unhealthy relationship. He is an obsessive-compulsive control freak, and she is a an extremely insecure nourisher who desperately needs him to need her to take care of him. Given their personality clash, it seems apparent that the relationship will devolve into darkness, and of course it does.
I will say no more out of respect for those who have not yet seen the movie. However, I will say that the final reveal was unbelievable to me. Given all we had learned about Woodcock's character throughout the film, I found it impossible to believe he would willingly compromise himself to the extent that he does in the end, and for me that made the ending a disappointment.
I forgive the ending because the film itself was so artfully made by director Paul Thomas Anderson, and the acting so spot on by all three leads (Daniel Day Lewis, Leslie Manville and Vickie Krieps), that Anderson could have ended the film by showing monkeys flying out of his backside and I still would have liked it.