Alexa Chung unpicks her love affair with Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread
“I love Reynolds Woodcock, he’s just such a fastidious bastard”
Alexa Chung is a model, broadcaster and designer. She first came to prominence as a presenter on Channel 4’s Popworld, before fronting shows for MTV, the BBC and Netflix. A three-time Fashion Icon winner at The Fashion Awards, she has designed for international brands, served as the British Fashion Council’s Style Ambassador, and currently writers a weekly column for the Financial Times fashion. Known for her singular style, she has appeared on the covers of Vogue, ELLE and Harper’s Bazaar, and is regarded as one of the defining British fashion figures of her generation.
In 1950s London, renowned couturier Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis) rules his fashion house with obsessive precision, until he meets Alma (Vicky Krieps), whose quiet resolve first unsettles and then transforms him. Anderson’s lush, twisted romance is part gothic fairytale, part study of desire and control, and is considered one of cinema’s modern masterpieces.
“I connect to this perfectionist creative who is subsumed by his craft,
but is also grieving and totally unable to express himself”
WHY I LOVE IT
I like the feeling of it and how elegant it looks. I love the world PTA has created: it seems so totally real. And it feels familiar to me, even though clearly it’s melancholy and tense. It’s also very beautiful and a perfect take on the life of a designer.
FIRST TIME I SAW IT
I can’t recall the first time, but one of the times I watched it was in New York. They were showing it at the Metrograph on the Lower East Side in winter and I went wearing my pyjamas and a long brown fake fur coat and a hangover, not expecting to bump into anyone, and basically everyone was there.
HOW MANY TIMES I’VE SEEN IT
I watch it every time I’m in Paris because I often very luckily stay at Le Bristol and it’s one of only 10 film options they have so it’s that or one of the Annabelle movies.
WHAT I ASSOCIATE THE FILM WITH
I think I connect to this perfectionist creative who is subsumed by his craft, but is also grieving and totally unable to express himself. I’ve always been drawn to people like that. I enjoy seeing this quintessentially British character, someone so full of romance and chaotic feeling, but keeping a watertight lid on things via his controlling behaviour.
LAST TIME I WATCHED IT
I watched it in Paris again last year and ordered this vegetable soup that I’m obsessed with and fries with ketchup and mayo and a glass of red wine. I sit in bed and take smoke breaks out the window.
HOW IT MAKES ME FEEL
Weirdly cosy.
HOW DEEP MY LOVE GOES
I post the New Year’s Eve balloon scene a lot on Instagram, I just love how that looks sort of haunting but full of potential joy.
MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER
Reynolds Woodcock. He’s just such a fastidious bastard and I love when he’s interrupted at work and says, “the tea is leaving, but the interruption is staying right here with me.” It’s so funny.
THE BEST OUTFIT
I actually love that the clothes he designs aren’t very nice. Nobody talks about that and I can’t tell if it’s on purpose or not. The clothes are beautiful, but they’re also sort of not extraordinary and I presume that was a choice, since he’s such a proud man and so obsessed with his designs but he’s falling out of fashion. It’s so quietly tragic.
THE BEST BIT
I love how defiant Alma is. Vicky Krieps is total perfection, I feel like she even blushes on cue. The scene where she’s taking Woodcock’s convoluted order in a cafe is very charming, she’s chronically natural in it and totally captivated by him, but also playful and unafraid.
MY FAVOURITE LINE
The line I mentioned, about the tea and the interruption, but also when they’re arguing and she’s just making sounds to mock him.
ONE LAST THING…
If it is the performance that made Daniel Day-Lewis consider he had completed acting, then that speaks for its quality. Until recently, that is, because obviously he has a new film out. [Anenome, a film directed by his son Ronan, with whom Day-Lewis co-wrote the script, in cinemas in October.]
FURTHER READING
The Most Scathing One-Liners From Phantom Thread
Vulture (New York Magazine)
Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson on How They Created Phantom Thread
The New York Times
The Claustrophobic Elegance of Phantom Thread
The New Yorker
The needle and the damage done: Paul Thomas Anderson on Phantom Thread
Sight & Sound
Paul Thomas Anderson on What Makes a Movie Great
The New Yorker
Getting The Skinny on Daniel Day-Lewis
Interview Magazine
WHERE TO WATCH
United Kingdom
London – Prince Charles Cinema
Tue 16 Sep · 8:55pm · 35mm
Sun 21 Sep · 2:50pm · 35mmCrieff, Perthshire – Strathearn Arts
Sat 18 Oct · 7:30pm
North America
Los Angeles – New Beverly Cinema
Fri 5 Sep · 2:00pm · 35mmVancouver – VIFF Centre
Tue 9 Sep · 8:00pm
Wed 10 Sep · 5:30pmChicago – Music Box Theatre
Sun 21 Sep · 11:00am · 35mm