Magnolia (1999)
review by Scott Hunt. Visit me at Movie Hunt http://netdirect.net/~hunt/index.html
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson Cast: Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Robards, Willim H. Macy, Melora Walters, John C. Reilly, Phillip Baker Hall, Jeremy Blackman
Magnolia left me relling from the theatre, staggering from the relentless assault of an adventurous director reveling in his craft. At nearly three and a half hours, Magnolia will strike some as a brute of a film. It not only demands your attention, but challenges you to grasp the significance of seemingly unrelated storylines and hidden intentions. It is delirious, depressing, heady, pretentious, surreal filmmaking. It's also a movie that will polarize its viewers.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson takes a talented cast, wraps them in a net of interrelated stories and sets them spinning in a symphony of despair whose song doesn't let up until an oddly exhilerating, biblically influenced pseudo-climax. The character's make up a modern day Gomorrah in the soulless way in which they live their lives. There is Frank Mackey (Tom Cruise), a slithery snake charmer of men whose "Search and Destroy" seminars teach how to mentally rape a woman to get into her pants. There is Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), a dying media tycoon yearning to make amends for a lfe of callousness by finding his estranged son. There is game show host Jimmy Gator (Phillip Baker Hall), a self absorbed TV icon who is hiding more than a few secrets from his public. And there is police officer Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly), who cloaks himself in the codification of organized religion and the legal system, perhaps masking a man who needs rules to fuel his decision making process.
Given equal weight are stories involving a coke-addled emotional cripple (Melora Walters), a former TV quiz show champion (William H. Macy). a materialistic, adulterous wife (Julianne Moore), a child (Jeremy Blackman) victimized by a mentally abusive parent, and a caring, empathetic nurse (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Hovering over all these characters is a cloud of death, lies and despair. It is not a pleasant movie.
There is not one bad note in the acting. It is affecting and layered and wonderful. There is a moment where Tom Cruise wordlessly implodes that rivals work he has done in whole films. Then he tops himself with a mesmerizing deathbed scene. Walters plays her character with red-eyed rawness and a fierce self-destructiveness that is anxiety inducing. Robards convincingly portrays a fading whisper of a man, who still hears a lion's roar when he speaks. Director Anderson has apparently given the actors lattitude to emote. The problem is that he stays on them too long. Julianne Moore's character, Linda, quickly escalates to a frenzied pitch of guilt, tears, screaming and remorse and never backs off from it. After a few hours, it turns from interesting to chinese water torture. Quite a few scenes, such as the game show, go on just a bit too long and will be off-putting for those used to a pat 90 minute film where the main theme is reiterated several times just in case you missed it the first go around.
And just what is the theme? Alienation? Hopelessness? Anderson challenges you to draw your own conclusions and he doesn't make it easy. The film starts by showing three, strange and seemingly unrelated events. It's a harbinger of the synchronicity to come. At times, different stories reach reach key moments at the same time. Other times, stories seem to veer off into uncharted territory, regardless of what else is happening. Anderson is audacious enough to even have a group sing in the middle of the film! What's surprising is that it mostly works. If you have doubts about Anderson's intentions, I'll ask you to pay attention to the final frame. Despite all the Sturm und Drang, Magnolia ultimately speaks to man's capacity for hope and attempts at redemption.
Despite Magnolia's needlessly long running time and its propensity for uneven editing as Anderson plays the auteur, showing off fro the masses, I have to admire his guts. This is truly adventurous filmmaking that spits in the face of conventional storytelling.
My rating: A Bulleye. (4 out of 4 stars)
A side note: Helping anchor the film is a perfectly matched soundtrack featuring Aimee Mann. Her lyrics often add depth to a scene thematically while the actual music is both morose and beautiful. When she sings "Save Me" at the end, it enhances the yearning felt by the characters, just as "Wise Up" mirrors the anguish felt by all as they contemplate their lives.
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