There Will Be Blood is an all-out perversion of a Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story, reimagined as a monstrous morality tale. Over the course of the movie, Plainview's character, initially taciturn and withdrawn, is slowly revealed: "I hate most people," he explains to Henry (Kevin J. O'Connor), who may or may not be his lost half-brother. Driven by his desire to "earn enough money to get away from everyone," Plainview's ambition knows no bounds. He begins the story underground, smacking rock with a pick axe. Sparks fly. By the movie's end, Plainview is underground again, once and for all done smacking things.

There Will Be Blood opens as an epic history with a sprawling canvas and a keen eye on vivid period detail, but its fearless gaze keenly zeroes in on the final tunnel vision, a merciless conclusion so appalling that it threatens to curdle your very bodily fluids. The bowling alley where Plainview sleeps on the floorboards and stuffs himself with whiskey and steak becomes a metaphor for all that is damaged and wasteful, murderous and oblivious in the American spirit. Early commentators have already misread There Will Be Blood as a cynical movie, but at its heart, Anderson's portrait of insatiable greed is deeply moral.

A movie of rare power, There Will Be Blood is destined to take its place among such ageless tragedies of American avarice as The Godfather, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Scarface, and Citizen Kane -- with catchphrases to match. "I drink your milkshake!" is the new "Say hello to my little friend." In Daniel Plainview, Anderson and Day-Lewis have created a sublime and haunting vision of the dark specter at the root of our prosperity.