Phantom Thread (Paul Thomas Anderson 2017)

and so anyway it turns out that the best thing about Phantom Thread (2017), Paul Thomas “No Daddy Issues Whatsoever” Anderson’s latest paean – albeit ambivalent – to men who are monstrous pricks is not the fabrics or the frocks or the fungi, nor is it the way in which the relationship between Edward Christian Reynolds and Bella Anastasia Alma deconstructs the myth of romantic love, revealing the way it works as ideological cover for the toxicity of heteronormativity under a patriarchal class system, no, the best thing about Fifty Shades Posher is the scene at the fancy-pants New Year’s party in which there is literally an elephant in the room – and no one talks about…