MAGNOLIA (New Line) Starring: Tom Cruise, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Julianne Moore, Jeremy Blackman, John C. Reilly, Melora Walters, William H. Macy, Jason Robards, Melinda Dillon. Screenplay: Paul Thomas Anderson. Producers: Joanne Sellar and Paul Thomas Anderson. Director: Paul Thomas Anderson. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, drug use, sexual situations, nudity, violence, adult themes). Running Time: 179 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
At one pivotal point in MAGNOLIA -- one of several pivotal points in Paul Thomas Anderson's epic of human connection and disconnection -- a woman sits alone in her apartment, singing along to a song. At first it seems she's singing along to her stereo, until Anderson cuts to another character singing the same song. He does this half a dozen more times, capturing every one of his principal characters accompanying the haunting original Aimee Mann composition "Wise Up." As the characters struggle with moments of painful realization, they become individual voices in a mournful chorus looking for forgiveness, reconciliation and redemption.
That sequence in MAGNOLIA is one of the year's best pieces of film-making, and I could name a dozen more moments from the film that will be sticking in my memory. If Anderson had pulled all those pieces of film-making together into a stronger whole, MAGNOLIA might have been the year's best film, instead of just a very good one. It's certainly an ambitious work, following many characters through one rainy day in the San Fernando Valley. Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) is dying of cancer, inspiring his young wife Linda (Julianne Moore) to guilt-ridden thoughts and inspiring Earl's caretaker Phil (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to seek out Earl's estranged son, self-help guru Frank T. J. Mackey (Tom Cruise). Game show host Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall) is also dying of cancer and also has an estranged child, a coke-addicted daughter named Claudia (Melora Walters) who becomes the object of affection for good-natured cop Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly). Meanwhile, quiz show whiz kid Stanley (Jeremy Blackman) tries to get through another show, while has-been whiz kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) tries to get through another day.
Anderson sets out to connect his stories thematically with a wild prologue involving three unrelated tales of coincidence and chance. In a way, the whole thing is little more than an extended attempt to justify the film's most surreal device (more on which later). It's also undeniably compelling, charged by Anderson's kitchen sink visual style. And for three hours, that's what MAGNOLIA does: It delivers thrilling scene after thrilling scene which, by all rights, should simply feel self-indulgent. Tom Cruise is positively electrifying as the motivational speaker who teaches a course in male sexual conquest called "Search and Destroy" (it's the best performance of his career until he once again makes the mistake of crying on screen). Reilly is wonderful, both in his awkward flirtations with the hopped-up Claudia and in his trite straight-arrow response to a young would-be rapper. And Macy once again finds the wounded humanity in a pathetic figure.
When Anderson nails these characters at their most vulnerable and conflicted, he creates sensational scenes for actors. MAGNOLIA plays like a cross between a symphony and a jazz jam, with solo showcases building toward splendidly edited crescendos. The only thing missing is an anchor, something that ties Anderson's multiple story lines together in a way that makes them greater than the sum of their parts. It shouldn't have been that difficult considering the parallels Anderson sets up (present day whiz kid and past whiz kid, the two cancer patients and their angry progeny). And yes, sins of the fathers play a role in most of the characters' lives. It's obvious Anderson wants us to feel a connection. I just don't think he pulls it off, giving more attention to the individual trespasses and recriminations than to the links between them.
There's sure to be much talk about Anderson's most audacious attempt to pull his story together, a cloudburst in which something besides rain falls from the sky in a torrent. I'm not about to guess what Anderson was thinking by loosing a Biblical plague upon the San Fernando Valley, nor will I pretend the credulity-stretching trick doesn't feel more like a grand gag than a dramatic fulcrum. There's also something about it that just plain works -- maybe just as damn-the-torpedoes film-making, maybe as acknowledgement of how primal forces can throttle you into re-evaluating your life. That, in a nutshell, is the wonderful frustration of MAGNOLIA. Part of you wants to expose Anderson as a philosophical poseur, and the other half can't stop watching everything he throws at the screen.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 surreal magnolias: 8.
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