Review of Magnolia (1999) by Connor _ — 08 Jan 2011

Magnolia is an astonishing and sometimes frustratingly flawed work of art. I understand why the film strikes a unique chord with so many viewers, but the fact is that the characters simply aren't as vivid or as realized as Boogie Nights and thematically it's not the jawdropping There Will Be Blood.

At times its angry and bitter beyond comprehension (the Tom Cruise storyline-a great depiction of a scumbag public speaker-is hilarious but seethes with real resentment) and Julianne Moore as Linda Partridge manages to be a lousy performance and poorly written storyline (the scene in the pharmacy is just amazingly awful).

The scenes with William H. Macy as the former quiz kid Donnie Smith in a bar are frightfully pretentious. Having noted all that, the movie is mostly very well written and directed with Paul Thomas Anderson (still in his twenties) bringing real feeling and hurt to the wonderfully written storyline with John C.

Reilly and Melora Walters as the two lost souls who find something like connection and love one rainy night and the painful and touching "What Do Kids Know?" scenes (the questions are just hilarious, but I wish that PTA had trusted us to know the genius kid's father was a hustling dick without making him look so overtly like a hustling dick).

The immediately tangential prologue is incredible, the Aimee Mann song all the characters sing is unlike anything else I've ever seen, and that frog plague ending is cinema at its most fearless and insane.

Watching Magnolia again for the first time in years I had an image of seeing it in theaters as December 1999 ended and the world was surely about to go into chaos with Y2K and some apocalypse. In that context it's easy to imagine watching Magnolia with all its frogs, rapping black kids, and other weirdness and saying to yourself when it's done, "Well, I guess that is the last movie ever.

Hmmm....".