Underrated Performances - Paul Dano, 'There Will Be Blood'

There Will Be Blood is truly one of those films where the more times you watch it, the more times you'll grow to love it. The same feeling extends to pretty much all aspects of the film for me; the divisive ending, the soundtrack, the stylized dialogue, the unsparing cruelty of its story combined with the beauty it makes in utter, controlled decadence and chaos. And though I've still yet to get into my extended thoughts on Mr Daniel Day Lewis' performance, still currently being processed into my ranking of the thespian's performances, I thought it might be nice to cover his somewhat underrated co-star who, while not as domineering a presence in the film, acts as yet another element of the film whose brilliance is essential to its success.

Paul Dano's an actor who's certainly had an interesting career trajectory. He started off as a fairly prominent child actor, including some very edgy films like L.I.E. and edgy roles like The Ballad of Jack and Rose. His 'breakout' of initial sorts was probably in Little Miss Sunshine playing the son of a very dysfunctional family, Dwayne, who's taken a vow of silence in order to achieve his dream of becoming a test pilot. It's in these very unique, odd sort of kooky indie roles that Dano first established himself, and he certainly acquitted himself very well in them, branching off from these into gradually bigger roles in bigger films.

He's not always entirely on point, his small role in Looper was a distracting bit of ham, but he's generally veered between giving solid, charming leading man performances in the likes of Ruby Sparks, and intriguing character actor roles in Prisoners and Twelve Years a Slave as some seriously disturbed individuals. He sort of bridged these two sides together with his work in Love and Mercy last year, where his performance as a young Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was acclaimed for its raw visceral portrayal of the man's delibating musical condition, as well as his supreme expertise and passion for making music. Then there's Swiss Army Man which I really, really need to see - it looks too utterly bizarre not to.

His best performance, however, in my opinion, remains one of the earliest daring roles in There Will Be Blood in a sorta dual role as the Sunday twin brothers, Eli and Paul. The roles are not exactly equal, as Paul only gets about 5 minutes of screentime to deliver exposition of sorts and provide an introduction to the Sunday-Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) subplot. It's interesting to note that this was originally the only roles Dano was going to play, but midway through production Paul Thomas Anderson replaced the actor playing Eli with Dano, Kel O'Neill. This gave the young actor limited time to prepare for the notably more substantial role of essentially the adversary to Day Lewis' oil baron, a preacher whose family land Plainview desires and who decides to engage in a battle of wits with this formidable foe. I have to address one thing, many have said Dano works in the role because he has a punchable face. I disagree, he's proven in the likes of Love and Mercy and Little Miss Sunshine he can be a completely endearing presence; his work here as a hateful sort of guy is all down to his acting.

It's really outstanding how Dano manages to keep up with Day-Lewis in every scene they're in together. Day-Lewis' performance is one of the greatest performances of all-time, but Dano evenly matches him at every point with his extremely daring performance. He certainly goes broad, and over-the-top especially in his preaching scenes, but he's justified in doing so since the character himself is a bit of a large him, thus Dano's somewhat hammy approach also works wonders. Even greater than those loud moments, which are indeed terrific, are the somewhat quieter ones which emphasize the character's weak interior, and make his posturing on the outside as this rabble-rousing preacher all the more effective. It's a great performance that gets better the more I think about it, and it's a shame he didn't find his way into the supporting lineup of 2007 Oscar race, as it really is a darned impressive performance that adds to Day-Lewis grand performance in all the right ways (see; the Baptism scene), and has some great standalone moments (see: his breakdown at the Sunday dinner table).