Inspired by the first 150 pages of Upton Sinclair’s socially critical novel, “Oil!” and the biography of Californian oil magnate Edward L. Doheny (1856-1935), Paul Thomas Anderson’s film tells the story of Daniel Plainview, who sets off in search of silver in the west of America at the turn of the last century, finds oil instead, and within just a few years becomes an incredibly rich tycoon.