Magnolia (1999)
| Magnolia (1999) |
| Cast: | Jeremy Blackman | Stanley Spector |
| Tom Cruise | Frank T.J. Mackey | |
| Melinda Dillon | Rose Gator | |
| April Grace | Gwenovier | |
| Luis Guzmán | Luis Guzmán | |
| Philip Baker Hall | Jimmy Gator | |
| Philip Seymour Hoffman | Phil Parma | |
| Ricky Jay | Burt Ramsey/Prologue Narrator | |
| William H. Macy | Donnie Smith, quiz kid | |
| Julianne Moore | Linda Partridge | |
| John C. Reilly | Jim Kurring | |
| Jason Robards | Earl Partridge |
Review by Bret Walker
PT Anderson scores again with a very strange story about nine people who have nothing to do with each other, yet are held together by a very slender thread. After starting the film with the analytical look at three urban legends (told in the scientific sense as if they were true), PT takes us deep into a day in the life of these people and lends us a glimpse into a slice of real life.
It's the story of what happens to a nationally famous whiz kid who grows up and hits the skids on the coattails of his own fame. It's the story of a dying man, the wife who takes advantage of him, the male nurse who loves him like a son, and the son who turns his back on him. It's the story of a socially frustrated cop who finds love in the form of a coke addict. It's the story of a quiz-show host hanging on to life and the child prodigy who just wants his life back. All of these lives mix and intermingle, and it's only near the end that it's revealed to us how they are all connected, and it's an apocalyptic event that ties it all together and brings the slice of a vision to an end.
Magnolia is a beautiful and fragile flower. Magnolia is a poem, a song from start to finish. The three-plus hours it takes to view this film beckons the audience closer until it sucks us in with warm tendrils. It is a dream vision, a warm breeze, a kiss on the cheek and a kick in the groin. It is all this, and much more. Magnolia is more than just a story, or nine stories, or one film or a collection of films; it is an epic in a time of one-act plays. It's the kind of film that makes you weep and laugh and rage and shudder and cringe and gawk, and it's so fantastic that it's easy to say at the end, "These things just happen."
Straight on the heels of Boogie Nights, PT Anderson brings forth another masterpiece and instills himelf firmly in the crux of film art. Those who enjoy exceptional film making will find this film a delight. Even those who walk away scratching their heads will feel somewhat enlightened, and certainly entertained.
Rating:
Trivia:
All three of the incidents described in the beginning of the film are urban legends.
Links:
The original Scuba Diver/Forest Fire urban legend, from the Darwin Awards site
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