A stark desert landscape comes into focus. A solitary man toils in a mine trying to find a way to make his fortune. This is our first look at Daniel Plainview in There will be Blood and it is a telling scene that sets the tone for this man's life and his personality which this poignant and powerful movie will focus on.

The Movie

There will be Blood at its heart is the story of Daniel Plainview (played by the amazing Daniel Day-Lewis) and his quest to be a respected oil man. Over the course of the film we see Plainview find his first claim and begin the extraction of the oil using crude means. As his tale progresses we see not only his interests growing, but the means with which he drills and extracts becoming more modern and efficient. He eventually finds his way to a truly promising claim in an area called Little Boston, here he tries to truly make his mark in the oil world and experiences his most life-defining moments.

While manipulating this claim Plainview buys up a great deal of the area and eventually enters a battle of wills against Eli Sunday (played by Paul Dano), a charismatic young minister with questionable motives. Plainview and Eli have a number of encounters throughout the film where they are both antagonistic yet necessary to each other. The byplay between the two is electric and at times disturbing, not in an overly aggressive or graphic way, but in the blatant way they use each other to further their own needs. The tension builds up between the two in a dynamic way that leads to an inevitable conclusion that is one of the most disturbing scenes in the movie.

Central to the film as well is the young boy H.W. (Dillon Freasier) who Plainview raises as his own after the accidental death of one of his partners. The relationship between the two is central and distant to the story, which is a perfect analogy of Plainview's feelings for the boy. You know he needs him as a human connection, in a fashion, but doesn't really have what it takes in himself to be a real father to the boy. This is further reinforced when H.W. becomes too much for Plainview to handle and we see how he reacts and how he struggles with his choices where H.W. is concerned.