“I drink your milkshake” scene. How has this aged? I can’t believe DDL actually did it

Or the baptism scene shaking his head LINK

Cracks me up.

It is awful.

I caught so much flack for calling this out at the time but it was obvious to anyone not drooling all over DDL and PTA, both of whom I love btw.

So much wasted potential for that story.

This is still a brilliant scene. One of the best acting performances I've ever watched.

ETA: That's not to say I didn't laugh, but it was supposed to be kind of funny

I disagree. I think plainview was descending into dementia, and this would therefore be completely in character. It would also explain his increasing paranoia later in the movie

quote:

---

He is talking down to Eli like a child. Basically demeaning him. That's very much in Plainview's character.

---

this. op is way off.

quote:

---

He is talking down to Eli like a child. Basically demeaning him. That's very much in Plainview's character.

---

Yep. It is definitely in character, but also a good glimpse into how much he has lost it. You are watching him release almost all of his frustrations. Great scene.


ETA: I also took some of the theatrics of the scene as him poking fun at the church scene where he was "humiliated".

quote:

---

It is completely out of character for Plainview.

---

lol. Nothing is more within his character.

quote:

---

t is awful.

I caught so much flack for calling this out at the time but it was obvious to anyone not drooling all over DDL

---

im right there with you. I was mocked for saying this movie sucked.

quote:

---

his "son" just told him to FO

---

But that was only after Plainview mocked him, again in cartoon fashion.

I understand he was trying to talk down to him to humiliate him. He’s also mocking his ridiculous antics during his sermons.

But it still isn’t him.

The whole movie he is the definition of speak softly and carry a big stick. He’s a dark, brooding, calculating man. Until the final act when all of a sudden he’s a cartoon.

He can humiliate this broken peasant without acting like a damn clown to do it. Drunk or not. He’s about to bash his fricking brains in with a bowling pin for crying out loud.


That’s my take anyway. Scenes hit people differently. For me, it didn’t work

That scene was also a few years later, after Plainview had basically left the fields and become a recluse in his mansion. A scene right before showed him sitting in a hallway randomly shooting things, in what I thought was an obvious transition from cold calculating looking for an edge Plainview, to a Plainview that had won the oil battle and was now filthy rich but alone with nothing else to do but drink and go off the deep end.