2017 MURIEL AWARD WINNER, BEST LEAD PERFORMANCE: DANIEL DAY-LEWIS IN PHANTOM THREAD

Here's me on this year's MurielAward winner for Best Lead Performance, Daniel Day-Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock in Phantom Thread:

“For me, the height of (Phantom Thread's) emotional pitch arrives in a moment so off-rhythm and cloaked in reserve that it might be easy to miss. Reynolds, beginning the long, measured process of unveiling himself to Alma during a phase of what could be described as mannered infatuation, turns his reticent, reedy voice to the subject of his late, revered mother, a persistent ghost whose presence is ever felt, yet never quite so much comforting as unsettling. Her eerie silence is, for Woodcock, a terrible barrier, a measure of unattainable perfection for the designer who fears his work will never fill the void created by her absence. To Alma he hints at secrets which he routinely incorporates into the very fabric of his clothes, invocations and bits of physical memory sewn into the lining which make them unique to their owner. He then reveals that a lock of his mother’s hair has been hidden in the breast of his own jacket, and in doing so he hitches and swallows, interrupting but for an almost-imperceptible moment the flow of the confession. It’s a perfectly modulated moment from the actor, one that barely moves the ‘Acting!’ needle but somehow still registers an earthquake’s worth of character truth and mystery, and it’s as moving as anything on Day-Lewis’s Oscar résumé."

You can read the whole thing here. 

Have a happy Oscar weekend! My Academy Awards predictions are coming up next!

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