If you want to have a staring contest with me, you will lose.

How haunting!! PTA is at his most restrained, making a film in gestures and glances. Alma says herself that they're constantly surrounded by people, the house of Woodcock dutifully watching over them at all times. Their relationship relies on these moments of pregnant pauses and silent staring. Here's a movie where the director is experimenting with prudent self control while simultaneously goin' off the rails.   

Hello I'll start by saying that despite PTA's restraint here, it (not surprisingly) still makes me laugh and laugh and laugh. It's a fuckin riot, it's a hoot, there are parts that are like...genuinely side-splitting. Who's shocked though, the man is funny. But this post isn't about the movie at all but instead a tribute to Alma, the woman from nowhere!!

She is silent, willful, cool, collected--even at her most diabolical. She thrives in malady, finds serenity in infirmary. There's a sickness and a comfort to my relationship with this woman. There are traits I see in myself and hate! and reject but can't escape. She may be more spiteful than I and perhaps more driven by power, but we do share a desire for change yet are stubborn as an ox--and hey she cooks with pounds of butter so you'd think you could trust her.

Food is what brought them together and in the end what keeps them together. (Most fucked up thing in this film is hearing him order welsh rarebit and sausages. That was the red flag right there...Order pancake...eggs...) 

The dinner table clinking and clanking throughout the film hurts your ears, in Cyril's words. The isolated sound of teeth on a metal spoon is absolutely maddening, something that got my hand slapped as a child. And when he storms out of the parlor, she rests without batting an eye. We differ there, I would've followed him and withdrew. But she's headstrong, more than I'll ever be. She stays stalwart and confident in her positions, just like any good mother figure does. She isn't wrong, he is being too fussy.

She plays her hand in silence but she can still throw a pretty good fit (backgammon!). Waiting around to be told to leave. It's sick and it's twisted but somehow it feels like strength. Alma stands obstinate and un-yielding. Unafraid to enforce change. We're all so sure of ourselves aren't we? Control is what they both desire and they go back and forth between seizing it and surrendering to it. Who doesn't love a pig-headed psychotic narcissist though?? They're romantic!!!

A fragile male genius and a stubborn muse behaving as if love were a call of duty. She seeks the opportunity to stand up for her lover, firmly planting her feet by his side proving her loyalty, her admiration, her devotion, her dedication. Love for Alma is ardently placing her belief in them more than anything else, like a deity you stand before, devoutly proving the lengths of your piousness. Your lover's work is your lover, therefore you love the work. Alma the Pillar, Alma the Brace.

She craves those tender moments that come so far and few. Being sick makes you present and all we want is presence from our lovers. Hungry for the days that are hard that force the night to be soft. Longing for days of strain that end with collapsing together, clutching each other, breathing in sync til we lay our eyes to rest.

So is Phantom Thread PTA's Bitter Moon?? As sick and twisted and perhaps wrong their love is, I can't help but admire it. Outdoing each other simply because you're the only people who can compete with one another. There's deep romance in that nasty thing.

**To the hungry boys of the world: Beware! You probably deserve poison.

**Seen on a Delta 767 screen, triple featured followed by The House then Downsizing. Great combo.