The cutting and sewing scenes are a visual delight, even more so in their accuracy; they will make you think about the quiet obsession for perfection of Phantom Thread. On this precise framework director Graham Moore cuts a bespoke story woven around a sparse yet powerful cast, in a carefully mastered whodunnit that keeps the pressure steady on to its crescendo until the final release. The mise en scene keeps the focus on the actors' dialogues, and probably pays tribute to Hitchcock's Rope, but never resulting forced. Mark Rylance plays the tailor, pardon the cutter, with a controlled aloofness, but lets shine a twinkle of inner turmoil in his eyes and the sharpness of his wit, cutting himself loose from the situation he finds himself in. Probably one of the films I've enjoyed the most so far this year.
