For every Horatio Alger-type story of rags to riches upward mobility, it seems that American storytellers have also wanted to remind people of Jesus’ great rhetorical question in Matthew 16.26: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (NASB)

This past weekend my movie club (think of a book club, but without the literacy) and I watched Paul Thomas Anderson’s most recent film, There Will Be Blood. This movie has rightly garnered much praise and attention. I was excited because I knew it was loosely based on Upton Sinclair’s novel, Oil!, which takes place partly near Bakersfield. (Why must early 20th century American pro-worker novels take place near Bakersfield?) The majority of the film occurs in the fictional town of Little Boston and tells the story of Daniel Plainview, an oil prospector who possesses great geological skill and a sharp business acumen. He also has an avarice of the sort that hasn’t been rivaled on screen for decades. But he is no cardboard Scrooge-type character. Some reviews have praised the grand scope of the film, but its scale is not reminiscent of epics like Ben Hur or The Lord of the Rings. Rather, the scope, the breadth of the film lies within Plainview himself, within his psychology. The comparisons that come to mind are Orson Welles’ Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, John Huston’s Noah Cross in Chinatown, or Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part II. These are all men of insatiable appetites. They may be madmen, but their madness is focused, which makes them even more frightening.

Here is the paragraph that I will give some of the plot, with as few spoilers as possible, but if you don’t want to know anything, skip it. The film opens with Plainview mining alone for silver. This sequence of silence reminded me of the “Dawn of Man” scenes in 2001: A Space Odyssey. We watch the beginnings of a man as he discovers his true passions. Plainview’s greed is for money and victory, or rather, the destruction of his opponents. As you have probably heard in the trailer, he coldly admits in the film, “I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. I hate most people.” Those people he doesn’t want to succeed include competing oil companies, other prospectors, and even the people upon whose land he relies to do his drilling. Plainview’s main antagonist in the film comes in the form of Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a young holy-roller preacher whose father owns much of the original land Plainview buys in Little Boston. Eli’s brother Paul (also played by Dano, in an initially confusing, but rewarding dual role) turns Plainview onto the prospects of oil out in California. Plainview sees Eli as a fraud, perhaps just as he understands that he himself is a fake when he casts to the townsfolk his insatiable drive as loyalty and an industrious nature. Both men at different points feign confessions that belie their stated convictions, or so we initially believe. Anderson’s genius is in that we as the audience cannot tell how much of their confessions are true. Day-Lewis and Dano play their scenes with a tension that is at once both vulnerable and guarded. Mixed in with this is Plainview’s adopted son, H. W. In a terrifying accident we see Plainview make his decision about what he wants more in life. Is H. W. truly an object of Plainview’s love and care, or is he merely a marketing ploy? We, like Plainview himself, may never know. The film drips with religious imagery such as a “baptism” of the infant H. W. using crude oil. Plot discussion is over.

The pacing of the film is deliberate. Some in the movie club found certain sections overly slow, but I thought the pace worked given the bleak landscape. I couldn’t tell where the movie was going, but as the credits rolled, it was obvious that the film ended in only the way it could. With the title of There Will Be Blood, one would expect a very violent film, but it isn’t necessarily. There are a few graphic, but quick scenes of violence. The blood of the title works on many other levels than just violence.

Like the other Anderson films I’ve seen (Magnolia and Punch Drunk Love), There Will Be Blood is not necessarily an enjoyable film. It is, however, especially remarkable and moving. Anderson doesn’t make films that make me feel good. He makes films that make me feel like I went nine rounds in a boxing ring with a heavyweight champion and somehow emerge thankful for the experience. Unlike the other films I mentioned, There Will Be Blood is perhaps his most conventional use of plot and cinematography. We don’t deal with multiple narratives or MTV style slam zooms and editing. Also gone is Anderson’s trademark use of pop music. In its place is Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood’s perfect and disconcerting score.

Daniel Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Plainview is the type of performance that evokes great praise and superlatives. Our movie club scores each film on a five-star rating. People were giving the film four and a half stars on Day-Lewis’ performance alone. We all agreed that he should win this year’s Oscar for best actor. I joked that his performance was so big and terrific and terrifying that one Oscar may not be enough—the Academy should give him other Oscars, maybe for sound design, short documentary, or some of the technical awards given out before the show. Put quite simply, Day-Lewis’ portrayal of Plainview goes into the pantheon of great performances alongside Robert Duvall’s Sonny Dewey in The Apostle, Francis McDormand’s Marge Gunderson in Fargo, and Marlon Brando’s Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront.