Magnolia Review
by Jerry Saravia (faust667 AT aol DOT com)February 20th, 2000
I both loved and hated "Magnolia." Let me explain further. I've seen it twice, and I am convinced that Paul Thomas Anderson's multilayered, mosaic character study is the best American film of 1999. It is also a frustrating experience of a movie because it is so filled with emotional pain and regret that it causes one to avert their eyes from the screen in the hopes that it will all be over. Of course, this is what life often feels like, full of regrets and pain since we are all human and flawed. And that is what makes "Magnolia" such a cinematic marvel to witness.
"Magnolia" is set in L.A. on one rainy 24 hour day. It is raining so much that all the characters keep referring to how it is "raining like cats and dogs." We are shown the lives of several different characters who may live on the same street named Magnolia. There is the lonesome, clumsy cop (John C. Reilly) who is ready for any relationship that comes his way; the elderly Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), a wealthy man who is near death; the sympathetic nurse (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who takes care of Earl; Earl's gold-digging wife with a conscience (Julianne Moore); the strutting, sexed-up guru Frank T.J. Mackey (Tom Cruise), Earl's estranged son; the tired quiz show host dying of cancer (Philip Baker Hall); the coked-up quiz show host's daughter who loves Aimee Mann songs (Melora Walters); the genius whiz kid (Jeremy Blackman), a participant on the aforementioned quiz show; and finally, the lonely, pathetic former child genius Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) who wants love and has love to give.
"Magnolia" begins with an ingenious prologue about chances and coincidences in life, told through some famous urban legends. One includes an attempted suicide that becomes a homicide, a store clerk killed by three thieves who bear his name, and the connection between a blackjack dealer and a pilot. The point of these vignettes is to show how some people can come together by sheer coincidence without knowing why or how. And, in essence, that is what "Magnolia" is about.
Somehow, these people find a way of connecting to each other in ways not imaginable to them, or at least not immediately apparent to them. The most powerful scenes involve the heartless, cynical Frank who is the guru of something called "Search and Destroy," demonstrating to men the various methods on how to get laid (those scenes are as electrifying as anything Cruise has ever done before). When Frank realizes that his father is dying, he badgers the man verbally and then lets out an emotional cannon that is as moving as Marlon Brando's similar moment of realization in "Last Tango in Paris."
Then there is the emotionally high-strung wife of Earl (Moore) who regrets cheating on her husband and suddenly realizes that she loves him. A crucial scene is when she stops at a pharmacy to get medicine for her husband. She is questioned about her prescriptions, and Moore begins to curse the clerk, shaming him for calling her a lady. It is so effectively unwatchable that it will make you cringe. Along with "Cookie's Fortune," "The End of the Affair," and "An Ideal Husband," 1999 will be remembered as the year of Julianne Moore, a gifted actress of extraordinary range.
There are many performances worth mentioning but I will at least mention one of our most unsung actors in America, John C. Reilly (who appeared in P.T. Anderson's "Boogie Nights" and "Hard Eight"). He plays Officer Jim Kurring, who prays quite often and is seeking a mate. He finds one in the quiz show host's daughter (Walters) who plays her stereo far too loud. He is immediately smitten and asks her out on a date, oblivious to her drug abuse and her high-pitched personality. She does not realize what a klutz he is since he loses his gun and nightstick quite often.
"Magnolia" is full of so many great scenes and acute moments of observation that some of it will remind you of Robert Altman's classic "Short Cuts." The similarity ends as far as the mosaic of characters (there were far more in Altman's film) because writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson has a musical structure in mind that is as unusual and breathless as anything I have ever seen before. Never mind the various songs by Aimee Mann (written specifically for the film), Mr. Anderson has also mentioned that he based the narrative structure on the Beatles song, "A Day in the Life." There is even a moment where each of the characters sings the lyrics to the Aimee Mann song "Wise Up." "Magnolia" is surely the most musical of all films in a long time.
It would not be fair to reveal more of the surprises in "Magnolia," since one cannot predict what will happen from one scene to the next. The film builds with so much power and tension that it leads to a climactic moment that you will either love or hate (let's say that the "Exodus 8:2" signs are there for a reason). Some will argue that this film is too strange, bizarre and exaggerated to understand or comprehend. Those are the naysayers talking who do not wish for cinema to take such leaps and bounds from the ordinary. "Magnolia" is one of the most profoundly moving films of the 1990's with an ensemble cast that is as uniformly brilliant as you can imagine. All great films are tough to forget - this one will grow on you and get underneath your skin.
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