Certificate: 15

Running Time: 130 mins

Star Rating: 4/5

LONDON-BORN actor Daniel Day-Lewis wears success like an impeccably tailored suit. He is the most feted male performer of any generation in terms of Oscars glory in a leading role with three golden statuettes on the mantelpiece for transformative performances in My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood and Lincoln.

Day-Lewis's willingness to suffer for his art is the stuff of legend. He remained in a wheelchair during filming of My Left Foot, refusing to break character even to feed himself. He endured physical pain in bruising on-screen bouts in The Boxer and denied himself sustenance and sleep to convincingly portray an exhausted Gerry Conlon in In The Name Of The Father.

Day-Lewis delivers his final screen performance before self-imposed retirement as a perfectionist dressmaker in Paul Thomas Anderson's artfully stitched drama, which is set in the salons of 1950s London. It is another flawless embodiment of the emotionally crippled male psyche, deliciously complicated by an ambiguous sexuality and a softly-spoken fastidiousness that doesn't extend to personal relationships... except for an uncomfortably close bond to a ferocious, purse-lipped sister, played with scorching intensity by Lesley Manville.

They are a formidable double act. Reynolds Woodcock (Day-Lewis) is the creative dynamo of a luxury fashion house, which regularly welcomes the upper echelons of society including Countess Henrietta Harding (Gina McKee) and Belgian bride-to-be, Princess Mona Braganza (Lujza Richter). His sister Cyril (Manville) presides over the seamstresses and also manages her brother's romantic vacillations.