Paul Thomas Anderson's touch always creates characters that are rich, fully living, breathing and feeling people that just happen to live before his lens. Anderson begins the film from Alma's perspective. She is the driver of this voyage and Anderson makes this clear with a close up of her from the beginning. Anderson uses his camera in a way that reveals life, rather than dictates it. He allows moments to breathe, giving them space, such as the scene when Reynolds has come home to an empty house with the exception of Alma who has made dinner for them. We feel the weight of this upon him even though he is being cordial with her. But, Anderson also allows the rhythm to be enhanced as in the fashion show scene where Alma twirls and spins and glides and the camera captures her jovial rhythm.
Along with rhythm, Anderson uses framing to tell his story without bashing the audience over the head with it. We see Alma framed by a window when she first meets Reynolds at the restaurant. She looks as if she were framed onto a canvas, which becomes nearly truth as Reynolds makes her his muse for his work. Then, later at breakfast, Alma is framed with lines of molding from the wall piercing in and around her head after being reprimanded by Reynolds for being too noisy and moving too much. It makes her appear to be in a prison, or that the lines on the wall are penetrating her head.
Anderson's gifting as a filmmaker affords him the ability to work with the finest actors in the world. Naturally, he takes advantage of their talent by allowing them to be and do within the frame. There is a collaboration between actor and a director that creates life, and it comes from Anderson's wisdom to trust his cast to provide him the paint with which to dip his brush and create this picture.
