Phantom Thread

Submission 2,897

About

Phantom Thread is a film written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, and Vicky Krieps. The film takes place in the London fashion world during the 1950s. Day-Lewis plays Reynolds Woodcock, a high-end dressmaker obsessed with his work. He brings a mistress and muse named Alma (Krieps) into his world. Alma loves him but struggles for Woodcock's attention against his work and his sister and business partner (Manville). The film was highly praised and is nominated for several Academy Awards. On Twitter, several scenes of the film have been referenced in jokes and memes.

History

Phantom Thread was written, directed, and produced by Anderson, with Megan Ellison, JoAnne Sellar, and Daniel Lupi also serving as producers.^[1] The project was announced on June 2nd, 2016, and on September 8th, was picked up by Focus Features and Universal Pictures. Focus Features released the trailer for the film on YouTube on October 23rd, 2017 (shown below). The film was released in a limited run on December 11th, 2017 and released in the United States on December 25th, 2017.

Reception

The film was critically very well-received. As of January 24th, 2018, the film has a score of 90/100 on Metacritic.^[2] Critics praised Anderson's daring filmmaking, the lead performances by Day-Lewis, Krieps, and Manville, and the score by composer and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood.

On January 23rd, 2018, Phantom Thread was nominated for six Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Day-Lewis), Best Original Score (Greenwood), Best Supporting Actress (Manville), Best Director (Anderson), and Best Costume Design (Mark Bridges).^[3]

Online, elements of Phantom Thread have been joked about in various way. One particular strand of joke popular on Twitter involves posting screenshots of various media and humorously mislabeling the media as Phantom Thread. For example, a tweet by @tole_cover^[4] attributed various screenshots from The Simpsons to Phantom Thread, gaining over 300 retweets and 970 likes (shown below, left). Another tweet by author Miles Klee attributed a scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm to the film, gaining 45 retweets and over 350 likes (shown below, right).

Woodcock's Breakfast Order

Early in the film, Woodcock first meets Alma in a restaurant where she is working as a waitress. Immediately smitten, Woodcock challenges her to remember his lengthy, highly particular breakfast order. The scene became the subject of parodies on Twitter. On January 20th, 2018, Twitter user @I_zzzzzz uploaded a joke about attempting to recreate the order at a Burger King, gaining over 700 retweets (shown below, left). Twitter user @futurecanon uploaded a GIF of basketball player JR Smith in response to Woodcock's breakfast order, gaining over 70 retweets.

Phantom Thread memes were covered by Twitter Moments^[6] and The Daily Dot.^[7]