I remember reading about just how much money Rockefeller was making at the height of his prowess and the sums were eye watering. His Standard Oil company is referenced in this powerful drama with Daniel Day Lewis as “Plainview”. He’s a prospector looking for silver but who has a bit of a fall and discovers that there is something much more valuable and plentiful - if you know how to find it, He gradually buys up leases and together with his stalwart “Fletcher” (Ciarán Hinds) and young son “H.W.” (Dillon Freasier) starts to develop his business with a view to building a pipeline of over one hundred miles to reach the sea. Along the way, their lives are fraught with dangers and tough choices have to be made - especially when an accident at one of the wells renders the young boy deaf. It’s at this remote site that “Plainview”meets his nemesis. Not in a competitive, business, fashion - but in a puritanical Christian one. The son of a local homesteader is aspiring preacher “Eli” (Paul Dano) and the remainder of the film sees the one trying to humiliate and outmanoeuvre the other and disclaim each’s strongly held values. It’s a slow burn, this film, but DDL is on super form as a man striving for success but for it’s own purpose. His wealth does not bring him contentedness nor, for that matter, does it bring joy to anyone else. This also demonstrates just how poor rural parts of the USA were at the turn of the 20th century, and at how vulnerable the population were to exploitation and the venality of the oilmen. The photography is immersive and the pace works well in drawing us into the perfectly constructed characterisations that were the natural successors to the earlier pioneers. I didn’t love the conclusion. It seemed a little unnecessary, underwhelming - rushed even. The last ten minutes have an intensity of their own that though they well illustrate the skill of Dano and DDL, they just didn’t quite wrap things up as I might have liked. Still, it’s a great piece of cinema with some strong writing underpinning a series of lusts….
