Magnolia Review
by Gary Jones (gary AT bohr DOT demon DOT co DOT uk)April 14th, 2000
Magnolia (8/10)
Magnolia is writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson's follow-up to Boogie Nights. This time, Anderson has come over all Robert Altman, resisting traditional notions of narrative and instead taking a huge cast of characters and weaving together a series of vaguely interconnected stories, some of which come to a resolution of sorts, others of which are left dangling. Story hardly seems to matter in this swirling mix of rejection, death, loneliness, coercion, unfulfilled promise, abandonment and coincidence.
The film has a cast to die for, and includes particularly good performances from Jason Robards, who plays a dying man and looks really very ill indeed, Phillip Seymour Hoffman (surely Hollywood's new superstar among character actors) as Robards's nurse, and John C. Reilly as a lonely cop. There are, though, a couple of disappointments from usually excellent actors. William H. Macy plays an ineffectual man turned bungling criminal and gives what is little more than a reprise of his performance in Fargo, and Julianne Moore plays a character so whiney and unstable that she descends from being merely unconvincing and laughable to being positively annoying. Perhaps surprisingly, given the acting talent on show, the standout performance is given by Tom Cruise, who has never been better. All teeth and flashing eyes, he plays a motivational guru promoting his monstrous Seduce and Destroy program for predatory males. Cruise excels as he repels, explaining to his whooping followers that he is about to show them "how to fake being kind and caring". Later, when an interviewer offends him with a line of questioning about his family background, the smile fades and he grows silent. "What are you doing?" she asks. "I'm quietly judging you," he replies. I have always had my suspicions that Stanley Kubrick's methods were not suited to getting the best out of actors. All that time locked away making Eyes Wide Shut and at the end of it Cruise was middling at best. Here he is simply terrific, and all credit to him for taking this part in an ensemble piece, rather than just signing up for more obvious star-vehicles such as Mission: Impossible 2.
Technically, Magnolia, is big-budget American indie at its best and is beautifully photographed by Robert Elswit. Some haunting songs by Aimee Mann feature in several key sequences, including an effective scene in which we cut from one strand of the film to the next and see each of the main characters singing along to the same melancholy song. In some scenes, the songs are so high up in the sound mix that the dialogue is virtually inaudible, suggesting that the lyrics have more to say than the characters. The opening pre-credits sequence, narrated by actor/magician Ricky Jay, establishes the theme of meaningful coincidence in people's lives, and is the best short film the Coen brothers never made. This macabrely funny sequence, and the magnificently bizarre meteorological conditions near the end of the filmThis macabrely funny sequence, and the magnificently bizarre meteorological conditions near the end of the film, are moments of light relief in an otherwise pretty oppressive movie. (The strange climactic weather event is a delightful surprise, although those with a detailed knowledge of the Old Testament are given a couple of clues to what's coming.)
If I had my sarcastic cynic head on, I might suggest that Magnolia must be important because it's over three hours long, and it must be profound because it's so depressing. In a fairer mood, I'd say that although Magnolia teeters on the edge of self-indulgence and pretension, it is still an ambitious and impressive mosaic of failed and corrupt but ultimately redeemable lives.
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Gary Jones <[email protected]>
Homepage: www.bohr.demon.co.uk
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