There Will Be Blood combines three of my favorite things:

 

• Old-Timeyness (ex. Andy Rooney, 1930’s movies)
• Rich and powerful loners (Citizen Kane, Richard Nixon)
• Exposing of religious charlatanism

Daniel Plainview, the main character, encounters the a young pentecostal preacher Eli Sunday who claims to be able heal the sick and bring fortune to the blessed.

Although the main plot is about Plainview, I also see how Eli Sunday is not much different. 

Daniel Plainview is explained as a man who sees the worst in people, and just wants to “earn enough money [to] …get away from everyone.” which does include his own son.  He uses slick salesmanship to get what he wants, sometimes not giving people their money’s worth.

Eli Sunday claims to be a righteous man of God but is also keenly aware of the riches of his father’s land and also keenly aware of how that can benefit his church (which always indirectly or directly benefits him).

Sunday learns that Plainview will be starting the Oil well in a ceremony in front of the whole town. Sunday insists the well should be blessed for good fortune, but of course Sunday will also be doing blessing and advertising himself as the spiritual head of the town.

And at the end of the movie, it is revealed just how cynical and shrewed Sunday is.

This movie is mostly about Plainview as a cynical and selfish man, but those qualities also exist in the film’s “man of God”.  The only real different between Plainview and Sunday is that Plainview admits it and like most religious charlatans Eli Sunday wouldn’t dare.