There’s a genre of films I normally can’t stand: A tortured male genius is so consumed by his work that he hardly notices the passive, two-dimensional—but very, very beautiful—woman yearning for his attention (see: “Whiplash,” “Mother!” and “The Theory of Everything”). But there is one film in this genre that I absolutely love: “The Phantom Thread,” which flips the trope on its head. The Paul Thomas Anderson masterpiece is about Reynolds Woodcock, a brilliant womenswear designer in London who meets Alma, an immigrant waitress at a country inn. (Vicky Krieps, in her first major role, somehow manages to steal the show from the GOAT, Daniel Day Lewis.) After their unusual first encounter, Woodcock is irresistibly drawn to Alma’s vibrant audacity, and she soon becomes his lover and muse. But when she moves in with him and attempts to carve out a place in his perfectly regimented life, he comes to resent the very liveliness he first fell in love with. While the female characters in most of these films shrink themselves to accommodate the narcissistic men in their lives, Alma refuses to be suppressed. In the final act, Alma flips the power dynamic in a fairly shocking manner. But what’s really surprising is how romantic her act of subterfuge actually feels. amazon.com/gp/video/detai..