Magnolia Details

mixed views..

I have trouble reviewing films like this. I was really unsure what rating to give this.

It is, without doubt, a very inventive piece of filmmaking from Paul Thomas Andersen.. the characters are well developed and the storylines are interesting. At the beginning you feel a bit confused, but then you realise that the film isn't asking too much of it's audience, you just need to sit back and enjoy the different storylines (some of which collide later on, but not in some important Tarantinoesque way, they just naturally collid).

So, if I was to be a typical film buff I could call this film genius and all the rest of it; but I will restrain myself because the truth is.. I didn't enjoy it enough.

The film is 2hr 54mins long.. after two hours it does start to drag; despite the nine different stories going on. I'd say the first two hours are very very good, very original (well, maybe.. it does afterall steal quite heavily from Altman's 'Short Cuts') and entertaining.. but towards the end it just seems to try and be a bit too deep. The character arcs are a bit too blatent and the audience is force-fed this emotional journey of self-discovery within the characters. These moments of self-realisation could have been a little bit more subtle. I mean- anyone who is truly enjoying 'Magnolia' is going to be a film fan who can intelligently read the text- therefore there's no need to turn to a layman piece of filmmaking near the end. Unfortunately, it did.. and that bothers me. It bothers me because i'd already sat there for over two hours and I thought the film was the greatest thing ever.. and then it dipped quite strongly.

That's just my opinion. By all means- see it, make up your own minds.. afterall any film by this writer-director is always going to be worth seeing.

dan

dj152@aol.com

[Highly rated reviewer]

Magnolia

Magnolia is the study of nine lives in one day in San Fernando Valley, California.

Dying Patriarch Earl Partridge (the late Jason Robards), Phil Parma (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a male nurse who is looking after Earl. Linda, Earl's trophy wife (Julianne Moore) starts to fall in love with Earl for real, despite her cheating. Earl’s estranged son, Frank T.J. Mackey (Tom Cruise), who runs a seminar for single men, which teaches them how to seduce a woman and leave her. Jimmy Gator, a TV game-show host and the second of the film’s terminally ill fathers (Philip Baker Hall), his daughter Claudia (Melora Waters), a cocaine addict. Police Officer Jim (John C. Reilly) who falls in love with Claudia after getting called to a disturbance. Stanley Spector (Jeremy Blackman) a child prodigy and contestant on Jimmy’s show. Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) an ex child prodigy.

After Boogie Nights Paul Thomas Anderson had to answer just one question, how on earth does he top this? In Magnolia he provides us a sublime answer to that question. The idea for Magnolia was to get out of town when Boogie Nights opened and run around and make a short, personal film on digital video. The idea evolved a bit. Magnolia is every inch the epic and an example of something too seldom seen in cinema, audacity. Three hours long, with a cast list that takes almost as long to read and plot that no blurb writer could summarize the odds are stacked against Magnolia, so why is it one of the best films of all time?

This is a film about coincidence. About how our lives connect with those of people we may never meet. Anderson tells many stories in this film but draws them together into a single narrative.

As he amply demonstrated with Boogie Nights Anderson has the ability to get stunning performances from all his actors and he does it again here. However two performances are worth singling out. Cruise is simply astonishing as Frank TJ Mackey and must have had real fun playing this character (coming to it from a very repressed character for over two years in Eyes Wide Shut). If you only remember one line from the movie it will be his 'Respect the cock and tame the c**t'. Cruise gets to play every emotion in the book, from his grandstanding seminar to his bedside scene with Jason Robards; he never hits a false note. It is a crime that he was not given an (overdue) Oscar for this part. Melora Walters was pretty well unknown at the time Magnolia came out, her only other work of real note being in Boogie Nights, In that film she did not have enough to do but Anderson remedies that here. Claudia is the centre of the film (Anderson says that all the stories were written branching off Claudia's story). She is utterly convincing in her role and, if her behaviour is hard to explain early in the film, you feel for her deeply when you know of the abuse the character has suffered. Walters delivers what is perhaps Magnolia’s best line when, in a restaurant, she asks John C Reilly 'Now that you've met me would you object to never seeing me again?' However, her finest hour is the film's last shot and after three hours wait it is a joy to see Claudia smile.

Another participant well worth mentioning is Aimee Mann, her music permeates the film, leading to it's most audacious, and it’s best, scene; in which the entire cast sing along to her 'Wise Up'.

Anderson uses his camera brilliantly, designing the film to exploit its widescreen frame to the fullest. This is particularly evident in Claudia’s apartment as she and Jim talk, each of them at one edge of the frame.

Some complain that film is too long, or that it leaves loose ends. It is true that all the plot points are not neatly tied up as the film ends but this is a film about the lives of ordinary people, loose ends are to be expected.