Cinema Crux is your rapid review of today's hottest films. It quickly allows you to decide where to spend your hard-earned dollars at the box office without having to listen to some pseudo movie critic spew out their own drawn out agendas.

Three-time Academy Award winner Daniel Day-Lewis turns in a virtuoso performance for what he claims to be his swan song to the Silver Screen. If this is in fact Lewis' final screen performance, the thespian left it all on the celluloid.

Phantom Thread is the provocative love story of Lewis' aging, erudite character Reynolds Woodcock and the lovely ingenue he woos Alma (Vicky Krieps). Set amid the Haute couture culture of the 1950s, the protagonists start off within the confines of a coquettish courtship and end up in an aberrant affinity.

Anything but conventional, the couple's love affair tips from unconventional to masochistic, as Woodcock and Alma realize the extremes they must take for their adoration to survive.

Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson also serves as the cinematographer and his Director of Photography skills, along with Mark Tildesley's production design are nothing short of Oscar-worthy efforts. Anderson employs cool colors - chilly blues and whirling whites - to accent the calmly beautiful mosaic in a plethora of bemusing outside shots that juxtapose with the seemingly serine relationship evolving between Woodcock and Alma.

These exterior shots also act as subtext for the craftsmanship utilized in Woodcock's mastery of the garments he conceives. This subtle touch of merging cinematography and character traits exemplifies Anderson's astounding filmmaking skills.

This is not the sort of film you can afford to fall asleep on, talk during or even take a bathroom break. Every moment of what you see and hear, particularly the carefully-crafted subtext, leads to a spellbinding climax that will have you wanting to watch the movie again just so you can connect all the intricate dots.

Recommendation: MUST SEE!