Magnolia

Magnolia is surely the most ambitious film of 1999. Like Boogie Nights, it is a complex narrative, weaving several stories around each other, and laying witness to the joys and disasters of the character's lives. Boogie Nights was an original picture in it's own right, yet Magnolia clearly stretches Anderson's originality borders even farther. Rarely does a writer-director try to weave so many characters together. It's a remarkably complex film, one that frustrates almost as much as it amazes.

This sprawling San Fernando Valley epic tells the interacting tales of a handful of depression-inducing individuals. Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) is on his death bed, and is cared for by his wife Linda (Julianne Moore) and his caretaker Phil (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Phil helps out Earl seek out his son, macho male guru T.J. Mackey (Tom Cruise) before he dies. Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall) is a game show host who has a resenting coke-addicted daughter named Claudia (Melora Walters). On Jimmy's show, there is a whiz kid named Stanley (Jeremy Blackman) who is pestered by his unloving father. Claudia, on the other hand, is the target of affection for the clueless romantic cop Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly). And, last but not least, Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) is a former whiz kid standout just trying to live through another day without money and self-respect. 

Magnolia has so many phenomenally great scenes that its hard to think of the film as better than the sum of the parts. The bravura opening sequence relates the stories of three unrelated moments of chance and coincidence at various times in the 20th century. Thus, the point of the story is set. Another such moment, an equally dazzling display, is a scene in which the camera moves between each of the central characters and sees them all singing along to the same song. It's an ingenious, magnificently staged idea, and the scene resonates with magnetic somberness.

Complaints can be made that Anderson's weaving script relies too much on the misfortune of it's characters. Each character has numerous break down scenes, with the best being handled by Julianne Moore (in a pharmacy) and Tom Cruise (at the bed of his dad). Julianne Moore, Tom Cruise, and the rest give great performances, with Tom Cruise seemingly being made for the role of a macho sex guru whose policy is to "Seduce and Destroy."

At times the movie oozes with intensity, but there are also times when the film drags. There are often times when the characters seem to walk around aimlessly, eventually arriving at their destination when a quick cut could have helped keep the pace. The pulsating, driving string score is sensational, and is a major reason that so many scenes work so well. Aimee Mann's beautiful songs, used at key stages in the film, help bring the audience into the character's depressive world.

We watch as each character's lives go from bad to worse, and their emotions go from instable to downright insane. After a while, however, the concentration on people's misfortune really tests your patience. In addition, I had expected a more direct method to bring the character's lives together.

Much will be said about Anderson's final attempt to pull everything together. It's one of those scenes that will be remembered for a long time by those people that see it. Even though it's done with a remarkable amount of skill, I can't for the life of me figure out why he chose to bring a plague of Biblical proportions down on the already devastated characters of this sprawling tale. The scene seems to be so self-indulgent that it turns out to be almost funny. It's almost frustrating to figure out what he was thinking, yet that's some of the best parts of 'Magnolia'; figuring out meaning in what you see on screen, however silly it may seem at first viewing. You could easily say that Magnolia, while perhaps not better than the sum of its parts, is riveting cinema and one large part in the progression of a stimulating, often ingenius director.

On a scale of 1 to 10 days in the valley : 8