Phantom Thread movie review & film summary (2017)

Welcome to the world, then, of Reynolds Woodcock, a couturier and a man of meticulous routine, as the following montage of his toilette attest. He applies shaving soap with brio, snips his nose and ear hairs with precision (played by Daniel Day-Lewis, he is a well-kempt man of a certain age), pulls up and cuffs his purple socks with vigor. At breakfast, a young woman offers him a luscious looking pastry and he looks at her as if she were a gigantic insect. A little later, Woodcock consults with his sister Cyril, a clipped and forceful woman, about how this household figure is to be disposed of.

And soon Woodcock is off, like a shot, to Robin Hood’s Bay, driving into the morning, dropping off his powerful car at a local garage, and ordering as he settles down to a table at the Victoria Hotel. We notice a young waitress at first because she is clumsy. Taking Woodcock’s order, she gains assurance; she vows to remember his order by heart, and it is enormous. She gets it just right, and he asks her, Alma, to dinner. At dinner he does most of the talking, describing his mother, and how she made him the dressmaker he is now, on account of his having made the dress for her second marriage. He talks of various superstitions concerning the making of wedding dresses; he tells Alma about the ways one can secrete small objects and messages into handmade clothing. When the conversation wanes, he looks at her. “If you want to have a staring contest with me, you will lose,” she says. And finally he invites her to his dressmaking studio in his country home. Where he does not seduce her, but asks her to stand for him so he can begin to create a dress for her. Cyril arrives just in time to write down Alma’s measurements— but not before sniffing Alma all over. Alma confides to Cyril her insecurities about her body. “You’re perfect,” crisp Cyril responds. “He likes a little belly.”

What is this relationship? A little later on, walking by the bay, Reynolds reflects on his great luck in finding Alma, and she responds, “Whatever you do, do it carefully.”

Reynolds is not particularly careful with Alma. She butters her toast too loudly. She oozes into his studio carrying a tea tray and he can’t take it at all; they volley back and forth with hard words and he finally says to her, “The tea is going out. The interruption is staying right here with me.” Alma concludes that after long periods of work, Reynolds needs to “settle down.” Her way of making him do this is, well, interesting.

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