‘Magnolia’ blooms into beautiful creation
By Samuel McKewon
Senior editor
It’s easier to appreciate P.T.
Anderson’s “Magnolia” if you know
how rarely a film like it is made.
It’s the type of movie that
Hollywood doesn’t green light often.
The distributor, New Cine Cinema,
wisely gave Anderson, director of the
1997 “Boogie Nights,” total control
over everything “Magnolia”-related:
the running time, the story, the sound
track, the casting -everything.
The result is a beautifully original
creation - a 195-minute tale that inter
twines the lives of several Los
Angelenos over a 24-hour period with
an ending only God could have predict
ed.
This ending, which has to be seen to
bq believed - and even then, it takes
some serious reflection - is foreshad
owed by the film’s beginning narration.
The narration outlines three unrelated
events through time: a hanging, a scuba
diver and a suicide-murder. While all
three of the events could be played off
as strange coincidences, narrator Ricky
Jay pushes another possibility: “These
things happen.”
That message hangs as an echo for
three hours as Anderson weaves his
story through major themes ,of televi
sion and father/son relationships.
The dying network tyeoon Earl
Partridge (Jason Robards) has a son,
“TP’ Mackey, who refuses to speak to
him. Mackey (Tom Cruise) is an
infomercial king who teaches men how
to “seduce and destroy” women.
Partridge also'hasa younger, repen
tant wife (JuliannoMoore) trying to
write herself 6ut of his will, and a nurse
(Philip Seymour Hoffman) desperately
trying to find Cruise’s character for a
reunion.
And then there is children^ game
show host Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker
Hall), a drunk who can’t connect with
his drug-addicted daughter, Claudia
(Melora Walters), or his wife while he
slowly dies in front of TV whiz kid
Stanley (Jeremy Blackman).
Stanley’s father browbeats him into
winning, an eerily similar situation that
former whiz kid Donnie Smith
(William H. Macy) went through as a
child before becoming a burnout in
sales and a seedy barfly in search of the
perfect braces.
Circulating around all of this is
LAPD Officer Jim Kurring (John C.
Reilly, in fine performance) who is
seeking someone - anyone - to make a
human connection with, eventually
finding a potential friend in Claudia.
Anderson sets the stage with these
characters and then lets their stories
mix together and play out amidst some
of the best performances and individu
ally written scenes this year.
In a role designed speoifically for
him, Cruise is a tour de force, basking
in his self-made glory of hating women
that slowly breaks down as we uncover
the truth of his past. Moore’s truth
telling scene is equally devastating,
with some ofthebest work the veteran
actress has evSrdone. Macy, Robards
and even the young Blackman all have
their moments of clarity and courage in
the script.
Just as important in “Magnolia” is
the score and original songs from
Aimee Mann, part of the inspiration for
Anderson’s story. Mann has a soft,
introspective voice, often sad, which
sets the tone for the humbling experi
ences the characters find. It ought to be
depressing but manages not to be.
Somehow (and I couldn’t profess to
know exactly how it’s done),
“Magnolia” lifts itself above the dredge
of its material. Some of that has to do
with the film’s twist conclusion, meant
to remind us how little we control and
that we move through and around life; it
doesn’t revolve around us. Anderson
seems to mean it as a revelation, and for
those who want to give in to
“Magnolia,” it is.
Critics of the film, of which there
are some, have contended it has much
less focus and energy than Anderson’s
“Boogie Nights.”
Those critics are right, but only in
the sense that “Magnolia,” with its
meandering plot lines, isn’t meant to
have the visceral power and immediacy
of “Boogie Nights”, and it treats its
characters with significantly more love,
- even Cruise, a man whose mantra is to
“respect the cock” while drop-kicking
dogs.
“Magnolia” stands up to, and in
some ways exceeds, some of Robert
Altman’s best work (“Nashville,” “The
Player”), though Altman doesn’t like
his characters nearly as much, and his
Magnolia
STARS: Tom Cruise,
Jason Robards, William
; H. Macy, Julianne Moore
DIRECTOR: P.T. Anderson
RATING: R (strong
language)
GRADE: A+
FIVE WORDS: Truly
original, “Magnolia” a
revelation
directing style lets us in to different por
tals than Anderson’s. Still, they share
the same type of vision.
I have little choice than to give
“Magnolia” the highest rating; my reac
tion to it was stronger than any movie
since “The Sweet Hereafter.” Logic
would suggest otherwise - it’s not a per
fect film. But we don’t identify with
perfection.
Rather, we move to something else,
like one of the movie’s characters who
listens to the same song no matter what
car he’s in. “Magnolia” will be that song
for certain people.
Sometimes these things happen.
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