Magnolia (1999) * * * 1/2

 

Directed by:  Paul Thomas Anderson

Starring:  Tom Cruise, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly, Melora Walters, Julianne Moore, Jason Robards, Philip Baker Hall, Melinda Dillon, William H. Macy, Jeremy Blackman, Michael Bowen

Magnolia is Paul Thomas Anderson's follow-up to the masterful Boogie Nights (1997).  The structure of Magnolia is similar in how it juggles a menagerie of characters, but while Boogie Nights focused on the 1970's porn industry, Magnolia tells interlocking stories of wounded people who come across each other by fate, chance, and a deus ex machina which will likely never be employed in a movie again.  When I first viewed Magnolia, I was puzzled by frogs falling from the sky like rain.   Upon second viewing, I realized this event was a necessity from the heavens to provide clarity, understanding, and healing.  Something had to give and it couldn't have occurred at a more proper time.

The people involved in the crossing stories are:  Jim (Reilly), a lonely cop who wants to do some good on every shift, Jimmy Gator (Hall), a dying game-show host whose producer Earl Partridge (Robards) is on his deathbed from cancer, Earl's estranged son Jack (Cruise), who goes by the name Frank T.J. Mackey and is a self-help guru whose program "Seduce and Destroy" aids men in their quest to dominate women, Linda (Moore), Earl's second wife who feels guilty about the way she has treated him now that he is near death, and Claudia (Walters), daughter of Jimmy Gator who despises him for reasons made clear later.  There is also Donnie (Macy), a contestant who many years ago won a boatload of money on Gator's show, only to have it stolen from him by his parents.  He has fallen on hard times and wants to rob his former boss' safe to pay for braces which he hopes will make him more attractive to the man he is in love with. 

With the exception of Jim and Phil Parma (Hoffman), Earl's nurse who carries out his deathbed request to see his son one last time, most of the characters in Magnolia are troubled and wounded, while Jim and Phil try to right wrongs and perhaps bring healing to those wounds.  They need help doing so, and they receive it in the most extraordinary and insane way possible.  

Magnolia is difficult to define except as an anthology of interlocking stories and characters in which these people are fated to be a part of each other's lives, whether they want to or not.  But there is a driving dramatic force which propels Magnolia into something unique and special.  This is among the best performances of Tom Cruise's career, playing someone so angry he invents a persona to mask his hurt.  His father left when his mother was dying from cancer, causing him to endure the pain and burden of watching her die by himself.   His final contact with Earl is equal parts resentment, pure hatred, anger, followed by regret and then love and acceptance.  It's quite a scene.   The rest of his scenes show him giving a lecture to equally hurt men who are trying to one-up women in the battle of the sexes.  Cruise was nominated for Best Supporting Oscar, which I believe he should have won, and it shows how multi-faceted he is as an actor.  This is something that could be said for the movie itself, and that gives us an emotional, riveting experience.