There Will Be Blood is a masterclass in narrative focus, prioritizing character development and thematic depth over modern identity-driven casting or messaging. Daniel Plainview’s flaws and journey are firmly rooted in personality, ambition, and morality, not race, gender, or revisionist motivations. Forced representation is absent, and characters are defined by actions and choices rather than demographic traits.

The film presents themes around ambition, family, entrepreneurship, and faith with considerable nuance. While it’s critical of both religion and greed, it doesn’t undermine traditional institutions in a way meant to score ideological points. Masculinity is portrayed as both destructive and compelling, but not simply pathologized, and there’s little sense of pushing modern revisionism.

There Will Be Blood explores competing worldviews, religion, capitalism, power, with sincerity and weight. Dissenting perspectives are given complex nuance rather than being reduced to simplistic villains or caricatures. The story’s moral and ideological conflict is central, with no sense of a monoculture or ideological lecturing.