1999 was certainly a banner year for film. Movies explored the heart of a disenchanted husband ("American Beauty"), the soul of a misunderstood killer ("The Talented Mr. Ripley"), and, quite literally, the mind of an enigmatic movie star ("Being John Malkovich"). But in "Magnolia," writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson confronts us with an even more hidden frontier: ourselves.
Taking a cue from Robert Altman, whose "Short Cuts" saw characters of varying degrees of sympathy intersect in Los Angeles, Anderson's superior ensemble effort captures a frenetic 24-hour period in the lives of roughly one dozen self-centered characters.
What Anderson is most interested in is the myriad ways we connect and the hidden effects we have on one another in life. "Magnolia" is a film where characters reach out and then pull away, where they tell their life stories to total strangers but refuse to share themselves with the ones they love. They are people so afraid of not belonging that they isolate themselves in cocoons of secret despair.
Some of the characters are linked more clearly than others (some by blood relation or their careers, some by chance encounter, some by neither), but the characters also connect in a more subtle way. They all represent former and future versions of each other.
For instance, Anderson intercuts between scenes of former quiz show child prodigy Donnie Smith (William H. Macy, at his nebbishy best), now a has-been, and current kid phenom Stanley Spector (Jeremy Blackman). What Stanley really wants to do, though, is abandon his unwanted celebrity and forge a bond with his aspiring actor father Rick (Michael Bowen).
Stanley is the heart of "Magnolia." Only he, a child not yet forced into his own quiet corner by the ravages of life, can articulate what he feels, and Blackman is the perfect instrument to play those notes. Forget the hype surrounding "The Sixth Sense"'s cutie Haley Joel Osment - Blackman's is the most revelatory child performance of the year.
Yet Rick Spector is not the only father pushing his son to the point of alienation. Terminally ill television mogul Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) did the same thing years earlier with his estranged son, the misogynist self-help guru Frank T.J. Mackey (Golden Globe winner Tom Cruise).
Cruise gets to chew some delicious scenery here as Mackey, an examination of human vulnerability told in three acts. Anderson hands him the juiciest type of role an actor ever can ask for: Without saying one true word about himself throughout "Magnolia," Cruise tells us Frank's entire life story.
Other parallel lives abound: Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall), who hosts the quiz show, is also dying. He, too, wishes to make amends with his estranged child, Claudia (Melora Walters). Meanwhile, both Claudia and Earl's trophy wife, Linda (Julianne Moore), find their lives governed by the substances they ingest.
Rounding out the principals in Anderson's flawless menagerie of flawed lives are Jim, a nurturing police officer (John C. Reilly); Partridge's compassionate nurse Phil (Philip Seymour Hoffman); and Jimmy Gator's long-suffering wife Rose (Melinda Dillon).
Walters, one of the lesser-known members of the ensemble, deserves special mention for losing herself in Claudia's drug-riddled world. It is when the paths of Jim and Claudia connect, however, that the seeds of Anderson's message of salvation fully blossom.
There are two other heroes at work in "Magnolia," one unsung and the other heard throughout the film. Editor Dylan Tichenor masterfully splices together the lives of these Angelenos in all their tormented glory, making agony seem almost exhilarating.
Additionally, Aimee Mann's original songs perfectly articulate the tone at play in "Magnolia." Her music, passionate yet somehow restrained, is the perfect complement to a movie about the contradictions and complexities of human life.
Anderson's three-hour-plus parable is riddled with coincidences and scenes of life's cruel ironies as it builds toward a climax of Biblical proportions. These moments would seem outrageous had Anderson not buoyed "Magnolia" in the beginning with a seemingly irrelevant sequence involving some O. Henry-like twists of fate.
Ultimately, Anderson portrays life as a tug-of-war between fate and chance. He asks many hard questions. Is it possible to be cleansed for one's sins? To be forgiven for them? What does it mean to sin? To be human?
Perhaps to the chagrin of many viewers, Anderson does not give any answers - he does not tell us everything because he wants us to rely on what we innately know about ourselves. And he reminds us to continue to ask ourselves these questions.
Unconventional and uncompromising, "Magnolia" is the kind of movie that truly defies description, one that has to be felt, experienced and permitted to linger. It's the reason that I fell in love with movies in the first place. And with Anderson as our prophet, I look forward to the future of film.
Grade: A
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