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| Magnolia |
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 (10/10)
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Runtime: 188 |
| Public Rating: 9.09 (294 votes) |
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama |
Year: 1999 |
| Writer(s): Paul Thomas Anderson |
| Reviewed by: Ian Barr |
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Magnolia would have to stand as one of the successfully ambitious films I have ever seen. What could have been, and some say is, a mess, turns out to be an absolute masterpiece, and one of the best ten films I have ever seen. The characters lives don't connect by just a simple bump into one another on the street, there lives seem to parallel, they are going through the same sort of turmoil and frustration as each other. The film runs for over three hours, but it goes on until it finds the meaning of each character's life.
The film kicks off with one of the best pre-credit sequence I've ever seen. Three narrated stories of coincedence and chance are told, one amazing story about a young boy's unsuccesful suicide becoming a successful homicide, thanks to his mother. We are then introduced to our characters, including Frank TJ Mackey, (Tom Cruise) a host of a seminar called 'seduce and destroy' which teaches single men how to pick up women, seduce them and then leave them, his dying father, Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), the former producer of 'What do kids Know?' a popular game show that started in the late 60's that pits kid against adults in a knowledge battle, Stanley Specter (Jeremy Blackman) is one of the present contestants, a child prodigy whose life is desecrated by being pressured by his careless parents who are desperate for Stanley to beat the record previously set in 1968 by Donnie Smith, (William H. Macy) who is now facing financial dilemmas. The host of WDKK, Jimmy Gator (Phillip Baker Hall) is also dying, and his relationship with his cocaine-addicted daughter Claudio (Melora Waters) is also shaky, she is having a romance with lonely police officer Jim (John C. Reilly) who gets a disturbance call from Claudia's house. Phil Parma (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), is a male nurse who is taking care of Earl, meanwhile Earl's trophy wife Linda (Julianne Moore) is starting to fall in love with Earl for real.
There are a lot of ways that Magnolia could have ended up as an ambitious mess, but Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights) directs with upmost passion for human emotion, and his storytelling style is rivetting (The film's theme, life's coincidences and chances, is encapsulated by a number of quirky and clever techniques . The phtography is also dazzling, but it's Aimee Mann's songs that give this film a haunting atmosphere.
The performances are uniformly superb, from a dynamic ensemble cast. Tom Cruise, who I previously thought was very overrated, give a teriffic performance as TJ Mackey, but Jeremy Blackman gives a painfully real performance and Stanley Specter, which stands as one of the best child performances ever given.
There is so much I like about this film, it's moving, haunting, and it's exciting. A lot has been said about the climax, being too pretentious and self-satisfied. Personally, I couldn't thing of a more perfect way to end the film. Possibly the most seemless 3 hours you'll ever spend.
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