Review of Magnolia (1999) by Brett P — 08 Oct 2013

Magnolia's an odd film with several characters that are fun to watch. Especially liked the performance by Phillip Seymour Hoffman and William H. Macy.

Edit:

I originally gave this film 3.5 stars (or at least that's what I last gave it). On this viewing I decided it was b/w a 4 and 4.5 star film.

It certainly helps to do some research on the film to try and make sense of such wonderful beautiful nonsense as Magnolia. At times the melancholy and constant motion from character to character becomes a little tiresome, but everything else keeps it going. Aimee Mann's music, some of the best performances from some of the best actors in one of the best ensembles ever on screen, the editing, the cinematography blah, blah, blah.

As for the...

SPOILERS!!!!!

Frogs...

Watch out for the numbers 8 and 2 as they allude to one of many Biblical references in this film (Exodus 8:2)... "If you refuse to let them go, I will send a plague of frogs on your whole country.".

To give some context, here is Exodus 8:1...

"Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh and say to him, 'Thus says the LORD, "Let my people go, that they may serve me.".

In allegorical fashion, Pharoh is Stanley's father whereas Stanley is Moses (who is the only one who knows about the approaching frogs) and Dixon (the rapper kid) is Aaron (as I'm told from my basic research) who speaks for Moses as Moses doesn't want to warn Pharoh of the frogs.

I don't know - something like that haha. If you want a real straight up answer from the director himself, here you go:

"It wasn't until after I got through with the writing that I began to discover what it might mean, which is this: you get to a point in your life, and shit is happening, and everything's out of your control, and suddenly, a rain of frogs just makes sense." - Paul Thomas Anderson.