Daniel Plainview represents all that is hated about America--he is the quintessential Ugly American --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_American. Driven by the "competition in him," he ignores all the other aspects of his person turning himself into an organism nourished by oil and sustained by greed. But what makes Plainview fascinating and more dimensional is that we see the parts of him that are human, that promise humanity but warp and distort ultimately from denial, self-manipulation, and neglect.
Plainview adopts baby HW after his father is killed in his well--Plainview's first unexpected humane act on screen that gives us, the viewer, pause. Who would expect someone so driven, a man alone, a moneymaker to assume the burden of single parenthood? Does he love this boy? Yes, he does... as long as he's not publicly betrayed by it. Sure, he uses the boy to advance his schemes but he also takes time to teach the boy--he's grooming him as his heir. He's caring for the boy as fervently as most parents with their flaws and limitations can. But HW's betrayal-- in his view--forces him to kill the relationship between them, just like he kills his fake brother. Plainview had made himself vulnerable to these people--to his son, his fake brother--as vulnerable as he could--he had accepted them, trusted them, made them worthy only to be rewarded with deceit and oneupmanship. What he had done to others, he saw being done undeservedly to him. Is there, then, any surprise in his final showdown with Eli, his minister-of-sorts, to whom he'd confessed his sins?
Plainview is what the world hates about America. He's George Bush who goes into Iraq talking about saving the people, spreading democracy, using his born-again philosophy to present our government's motives as altruistic and compassionate while simultaneously sending in the oil contractors and military to keep the people in check. Plainview is what Bob Woodward describes in his book State of Denial, a persona in full blown delusion, in hyperconflict, about his needs and his drives. Plainview is the businessman who hires illegal workers because they are just trying to survive but actually uses them as cheap labor, wage slaves.
Daniel Day Lewis deserves it all for his performance in this film for this was one of the most complex characters to materialize in celluloid history. His John Huston-ish voice r
ecalls that actor's role in Chinatown as the water baron whose sick insides makes him rape his own daughter. Lewis was very carefully posed throughout the movie, his physicality highly important for revealing character. Images lingering are his thronelike open-legged seating at the community sales meeting, the smirky, bent stiff hyperpoliteness when meeting the Sundays contrasted with the surprising caressing of Sunday's daughter and the open-armed concern toward his son, both as a baby and as a boy who he sends away to school, an act misinterpreted by others as abandonment when actually it was the most genuine act of love he displays in the movie.
This is not an easy movie to interpret, nor is Plainview a simple character to be viewed as the evil capitalist that bin laden sees. The score of Radioheads Jonny underscores the disturbing plot and character elements of this movie and adds so much intensity to the film that it's barely tolerable.
Totally great film.