Magnolia
Tags: bleak, cult, murder, romantic, sentimental

Plot synopsis:
In the opening prologue, a narrator goes over three events of incredible coincidence:1) Sir Edmund William Godfrey, a resident of Greenberry Hill, London, was killed by three vagrants looking to rob his pharmacy. The surnames of these men were Green, Berry, and Hill.2) Reno blackjack dealer Delmer Darion went scuba diving in a lake and was accidentally picked up by a firefighting plane in order to put out a nearby forest fire. Darion died of a heart attack inside the plane. The plane's pilot, Craig Hansen, had gotten into a fight with Darion two days prior at a casino. The guilt and measure of coincidence eventually prompted him to commit suicide.3) 17-year-old Sydney Barringer attempted suicide by jumping off the roof of his Los Angeles apartment building. Meanwhile, his parents, Faye and Arthur, were arguing inside their apartment. Faye threatened Arthur with a shotgun and accidentally fired at the window just as Sydney passed, killing him. There was a safety net that would have saved Sydney's life had he not been shot. His parents hadn't known the gun was loaded; Sydney had loaded it himself a few days earlier, hoping one would kill the other. Faye was arrested for murder, and Sydney himself noted as an accomplice in his own death.San Fernando Valley, present day:Claudia Wilson Gator, a depressed and seemingly bipolar cocaine addict, meets a man at a bar. They have sex at her apartment. The next morning Claudia's father, game show host Jimmy Gator, pays a visit. He tells Claudia that he has bone cancer and that he's going to die soon. Claudia doesn't seem to care, and furiously yells him out of the house. The man from the bar leaves as well.That same morning, Nurse Phil Parma arrives at a large house to look after Earl Partridge, an elderly television mogul who's dying of brain and lung cancer. Linda Partridge, Earl's much younger trophy wife, leaves to see Earl's doctor, who writes a prescription for a potent morphine painkiller that can diminish Earl's suffering. Meanwhile, Earl tells Phil that he has a son: sex guru Frank 'T.J.' Mackey (born Jack Partridge). Earl wants to see Frank before he dies, and Phil attempts to contact him.Frank is currently leading an enthusiastic seminar for his program "Seduce and Destroy," which can enable men to use women for sex. A reporter named Gwenovier arrives at the studio to interview Frank later.Quiz Kid Donnie Smith, who as a child won a large amount of money on Jimmy Gator's show "What Do Kids Know?" (of which Earl Partridge happens to be a producer), now works at an electronics store. However, his bosses fire him since his sales are down. He pleads with them as he needs to pay for dental braces (which he doesn't need; his teeth are straight), but they force Donnie to hand over his keys to the store.Jim Kurring, a religious police officer who is divorced and looking for a relationship, answers a noise complaint and finds a dead body inside a woman's closet. Though he was first on the scene, he is later ignored as his superior questions his fellow officers. Outside he meets a young boy named Dixon, who recites a rap referencing "the Worm" and God bringing rain in. Jim dismisses this as nonsense and drives off.Stanley Spector, a child genius and current long-running contestant on "What Do Kids Know?", is picked up from school by his avaricious actor father Rick and driven to the game show studio to win some more money. Stanley seems reluctant.Afternoon (it starts raining):"What Do Kids Know?" pits a panel of three children against one of three adults through a series of trivia questions. Stanley and his two co-contestants are minor celebrities thanks to their tenure on the show (in actuality, Stanley's co-contestants barely do anything; Stanley himself is the main reason this panel has lasted so long). Jimmy downs several shots of alcohol before the live taping. The show starts at 3:30 PM, and as usual, Stanley expertly answers Jimmy's questions, putting the kids ahead of the adults. During a commercial break, Stanley asks to go to the bathroom, but he is denied this request.Officer Jim answers a noise complaint at Claudia's apartment, where she is playing her music too loudly. After hiding her cocaine, she opens the door, and Jim is immediately smitten with her. He takes a look around and decides not to write her up, but not wanting to leave yet, he makes casual conversation with her.Donnie enters a bar (the same one where Claudia was the previous night), where it is revealed why he wants braces: he is desperate to connect with his crush, Brad the bartender, who wears braces. Donnie drinks heavily after Brad seemingly flirts with another patron named Thurston Howell. He later starts up a conversation with Howell, lamenting on love, as well as the fact that his parents abandoned him after taking all of his game show money.Linda goes to a pharmacy to pick up some medication, including Earl's morphine. The pharmacist tries making idle conversation with her, but she eventually finds his questions too personal and launches into a furious tirade before leaving with the medication.Phil orders some pornographic magazines to find the number of "Seduce and Destroy." He calls and tries to make his way through to Frank. Later one of Earl's dogs eats some medication pills that Phil accidentally spilled.The seminar takes a break as Gwenovier interviews Frank. The interview turns hostile when she questions him about his father Earl, whom he earlier lied was dead. After going over how Earl abandoned his first wife Lily when she became ill and of how a young Frank had to take care of her as she lay on her deathbed, Gwenovier asks Frank why he lied.Late afternoon to nightfall:Linda tells her lawyer that she wants to change Earl's will; she reveals that she has cheated on Earl many times and only started to love him when he was diagnosed with cancer. The lawyer says she can't change the will, but she can renounce it. Linda can't do that, as the money would then go to Frank (Earl has lied to her about his relationship with Frank, blaming his son for the distance between them). Frustrated, she returns home. She attempts suicide in the garage via carbon monoxide, but stops herself to bring the morphine inside.A drunken Donnie confesses his feelings to Brad, and vomits in the bathroom. He later returns home and gathers some secretly-made spare keys to his former employers' store, planning to rob the money for the braces.Realizing that the people around him are using him for money or publicity, Stanley stops answering questions, which lets the adult panel get ahead. He wets his pants during a round, while Jimmy collapses from his deteriorating condition. Jimmy recovers, but Stanley refuses to get up for the final round and instead goes into a rant about how people look at him just because of his age and intelligence. The show is forced to end without a clear winner (though it is implied that the adults win thanks to their accumulated score). Rick is furious. Stanley flees the studio and breaks into his school library, hiding there and perusing books about child geniuses for the rest of the night. Jimmy returns home to his wife Rose.Officer Jim leaves the apartment, but not before arranging a date with Claudia later that night. After he leaves, Claudia puts the cocaine back on her table and turns on the TV to watch "What Do Kids Know?", just in time to catch Stanley's rant. As the show ends, Claudia cries for an unclear reason.While driving, Jim spots a suspicious man (known by his criminal nickname "the Worm") and takes chase. The Worm shoots at Jim, while Dixon runs in and steals Jim's gun. Both Dixon and the Worm flee, and Jim becomes a laughingstock among his fellow officers for having lost his gun. He returns home to get ready for his date.As Phil gets in touch with Frank's assistant, a cold and indignant Frank stays mostly silent throughout the rest of the interview. Afterwards, Frank deliberates over whether to take Phil's call. Linda enters the house and, upon learning who Phil is calling, violently forces him to hang up. Frank decides not to speak with Phil and hangs up as well. The seminar continues, but Frank's now-troubled mindset causes him to make an error and lose his temper. After the seminar he changes his mind and drives to Earl's house, though he hesitates to go inside.After a tearful apology to Phil, Linda leaves to commit suicide. She parks at another location and takes some medication with alcohol, while Earl laments to Phil about the regret that has tortured him over his son and first wife (Earl was extremely unfaithful to Lily, mirroring Linda). Phil then gives Earl the morphine.What follows is a bizarre, somber sequence where the nine main characters sing along to Aimee Mann's "Wise Up."Night (it stops raining):Claudia and Jim go to a restaurant. The date goes bad when, following a kiss, Claudia's neurotic self-hatred causes her to break down and leave without Jim. She takes a taxi home.Jimmy admits to Rose that he has cheated on her in the past. They later talk about Claudia, and he implies (but never openly admits) that the reason she hates him is that he molested her. Disgusted and outraged, Rose leaves the house, yelling that Jimmy deserves to die alone. Jimmy then takes out a gun and prepares to end his life.Linda's dying body is found by Dixon, who steals her money and calls 911. An ambulance takes her and heads for the hospital, while nearby Dixon counts his cash and recites his rap again.Frank enters the house and speaks to Earl (who is unresponsive because of the morphine) as Phil watches solemnly. Though silently hostile at first, Frank soon breaks down in tears and begs Earl not to go away.Donnie successfully robs the store and leaves, though one of his keys breaks off in the door. The weight of his act later hits him, and he decides to return the money. Since his key is broken, he tries to access another entrance by climbing an adjacent telephone pole.Jim drives by and sees Donnie climbing the phone pole. He turns around to arrest Donnie, but stops when it begins to rain frogs. One frog hits Donnie, who falls off the pole and injures his teeth on the pavement.The frogs start falling as Claudia snorts coke in her apartment. After crashing her car due to the frogs, Rose arrives and comforts her frightened daughter.The frogs cause Linda's ambulance to tip over during the drive, just as it arrives at the hospital.A frog falls through Jimmy's ceiling and lands on his head, causing him to accidentally shoot a TV. He falls, unconscious, as a spark from the gunshot starts a fire...From inside the library, Stanley watches the frog storm, smiles, and calmly comments that "This is something that happens."As Phil gazes at the frogs, Earl wakes up, sees Frank, and struggles to say something. Before he can utter a coherent word, he dies.The next morning:Stanley returns home and wakes Rick, who apparently has not tried very hard to find his son. Stanley tells Rick to be nicer to him, but Rick coldly tells him to go to bed.Earl's body is taken away, along with that of the dog who ate his pills. Phil cries as he makes Earl's now-empty bed. When the hospital calls, Frank heads there to see Linda, who is recovering.Jim gets his gun back when it drops from the sky. After hearing his story, he decides not to arrest Donnie, and the two enter the store and put the money back, though Donnie now does need braces. After helping clean the frogs off of Donnie's car, he refers Donnie to someone who can correct his teeth. After Donnie leaves, Jim sits in his car and monologues about his duty as a policeman and about knowing when to forgive people.Rose goes to answer the door as Claudia sits in bed. Jim soon enters the room and talks to Claudia, making a speech about how he will love and accept her for who she is. During the speech Claudia looks sad and uncertain, but afterward she breaks the fourth wall and smiles at the viewer.

Review: Phillip Seymour Hoffman is absolutely outstanding as the only character who is "normal."  His performance has made me smile and shake my fist in the air the three times I've seen Magnolia since it opened.
This film is not for everyone, but, if you want to see glorious filmmaking, acting, writing, and characters in action, I HIGHLY suggest you see Magnolia..
It would have been far too easy to extend the story a bit further and portray the characters as now being "mended", but this is not how real life is and would not have rung true with the film's overall tone of "this is just something that happens".The sheer ambition of the director is also welcomed.
I don't think he'll ever be able to achieve the credibility he'd like, but a good start would be to take on more such challenging roles, with the proviso that they are not obvious vanity projects or oscar-vehicles.To sum up, I found this film warm and sincere, not pretentious as some have suggested.
Which of the two assessments is the correct one  or does the truth lie somewhere in between?Actually, there is much to admire and cherish in `Magnolia.' Writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson has done a commendable job in putting on the screen a relatively unique vision  a qualification I feel forced to make because it does seem patently derived from much of the trailblazing work of director Robert Altman.
Anderson presents a tremendously wide range of characters, though for a film set in the northern areas of Los Angeles, `Magnolia' provides a surprisingly non-diverse sea of Caucasian faces.
Many of these characters seem to have created any number of facades to help them cope with the miseries and disappointments of life  and much of the redemption occurs only after those masks are stripped away revealing the emptiness and hurt that, in many cases, lurks so close to the surface.Thematically, then, Anderson's film is a compelling one.
Many viewers and critics have called `Magnolia' an artistic advancement, in both depth and scope, for Anderson, whose previous film was the similarly dense, moderately freeform `Boogie Nights.'  I tend to disagree.
Anderson seems to want to capture the whole range of human experience on his enormous (and enormously long) movie canvas, yet because the characters seem to all be tending in the same direction - and despite the fact that the details of their experiences are different - the net effect is thematically claustrophobic.The controversial ending, in which an event of literally biblical proportions occurs, feels generally right in the context of this film, though with some reservations.
In fact, one wonders what purpose that quirky ending serves since the characters are well on their way to making amends by the time it happens.Anderson has marshaled an array of first-rate performances from a talented, well-known cast.
Particularly interesting is the young boy who, in counterpoint to one of the other characters in the story, manages to save himself at an early age from the crippling effect of identity usurpation that it has taken so many others in this film a lifetime to overcome.In many ways, `Magnolia' is the kind of film that could easily serve as the basis for a lengthy doctoral dissertation for a student majoring in either filmmaking or sociology.
After this the speed slows down slightly and the characters are given time to develop and the stories begin to interlink.Paul Thomas Anderson continues to get better and better with Hard Eight, Boogie Nights and now this.
Anderson's tries some audacious tricks and manages to pull them off - a scan round all the main characters singing an Aimee Mann track while they contemplate what's become of their lives is not only daring but works as one of the most moving moments in the film.The acting is flawless - Cruise deserved the Oscar for this performance, but he is only one of an amazing range of actors including Julianne Moore, William H.
The story of a dozen people, on one incredible day, in one very wet valley, on Magnolia Avenue.I could list reason, after reason, after reason why this is one of the finest films I've ever seen...
Reilly), a drug addict (not the old man's wife, a different drug addict), the guy played poorly by Tom Cruise (unsure of his official title), a gay man who wants to get braces to impress a bartender (what?!), and many more.Instead of actually having any reason to care about these character's unhappy lives, we are TOLD to care.
I'll even give an example of this whole "cleevrness with numbers" deal with THE SHINING:Danny wears a jersey with number 42 Danny and his mom watch the movie Summer of 42 Half of 42 is 21 There are 21 pictures on the Gold Room wall The July 4th Ball was in 1921 The mirror image of 21 is 12 (mirrors play a key role in The Shining) The two times shown via screen titles are 8 PM and 4 PM (8+4=12) The radio call sign for the Overlook Hotel is KDK 12 Anderson has a lot to learn..
Seldom has a movie been this highly praised been such a pointless bore.3 hours plus to build up to precious little.yes the acting is good but the film goes nowhere very very slowly.if this is so great why did it fail.in my opinion just like Fight club people a few thousand enjoyed it while the more entertainment driven mainstream audience chose wisely to avoid this.i made the terrible mistake of buying this on dvd i soon traded it in..
Like Fincher(Fight Club), Mendes(American Beauty), Jonze(Being John Malkovich), and the Wachowski Brothers(The Matrix), Anderson has created a truly unique film that stretches the boundaries of cinema.Many who I saw the movie with grumbled repeatedly about it's length.
the fact that Tom Cruise was the stand out performance in this film says enough, and he basically played himself.There's no point even discussing this film, on a basic level, it feels like the end product of a year 8 media studies final.
Acting is superb throughout the film, and though Magnolia has approximately ten lead role and a bunch of supporting characters, there isn't a single member of the cast who is misplaced.
My personal favorites are Philip Seymour Hoffman as the sensitive nurse (compare this role to the sleazy characters he played in Boogie Nights, Happiness and The Talented Mr Ripley and you'll notice what a great actor he is), Tom Cruise as the self-made seduction guru (his best performance ever) and William H.
At times, it can be difficult to watch what is happening because of what isn't being said or done; the most powerful elements of this film are what is implied.That being said, this film succeeds mostly because of the incredible acting from the huge ensemble cast and Anderson's writing, which many feel is too pretentious and self-aware to be taken seriously.
Of course, the acting really brings it home with incredibly powerful performances most notably from Jeremy Blackman, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Melora Walters and Tom Cruise, who completely upstages everyone else, proving once again that he is a viable actor capable of being considered great for his time and not just a box-office star.Yet, this is an auteur production the whole way through and for that reason, people either love or hate Magnolia.
In doing so, they reveal more about the human experience than any gritty, realistic film could.P.T. Anderson's 1999 epic "Magnolia" is that kind of a movie.
The cast is filled out by actors of the highest caliber (Phillip Baker Hall, Jason Robards, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Julianne Moore to name only a few) who embody the lives of their characters outside the film.
If there is a problem in "Magnolia", it is that there are a few tantalizingly loose ends that I'd like to explore further.I am consciously trying to avoid plot summary here, because in all honesty, this film defies any sort of condensation.
T Anderson, the man who would go on to create "There Will Be Blood", this film is not one you watch lightly, but rather one you set aside a whole evening for, lights out, preferably alone or with someone equally as enthusiastic (as is the case with most of his work) and engross yourself in for a good three hours.That three hours is an unusual urban tale in which a host of strangers' stories intertwine, each affecting another in some way.
This is unconventional cinema that requires some patience, but rewards that patience massively, with great, complex characters, played by a top-notch cast amongst whom there is not a weak link: Tom Cruise is a perfect scumbag with whom we empathise anyway; Julianne Moore is at career-best as a woman who was a gold-digging leach, and who then fell in love with a man whose fate is now out of everyone's hands; William H Macy is an ex boy-genius, now a lost soul just looking to fit in for once, and the young Jeremy Blackman is the current boy-genius, sadly destined to follow in his footsteps.
And there's plenty more...P.T. Anderson's ability to manage tone is remarkable, the film at once funny, heart-warming, sad and heartbreaking, part music video (at one point quite literally), and with a surreal final act, which can put some people off, but whose religious reference is important to those who would understand it.
Paul Thomas Anderson, fresh off his highly successful BOOGIE NIGHTS, shows that he indeed has the skill to successfully embark upon such a risky venture.Three hours can be quite a long time to spend watching a movie and Anderson manages to keep the viewer interested by not staying in any one scene for more than 5 minutes; that way the story feels like it's actually progressing and not stagnating.
Admittedly, the film still starts to lag around the 130-minute mark but Anderson uses a rather unexpected scene to snap viewers back into full and undivided attention.The acting is first-rate with stellar performances by Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, Jason Robards, and William H.
It should also be noted here that while all 10 actors do not actually interact with each other, they do share a common theme of suffering that is pervasive throughout the film and goes a long way to explaining key elements of the movie.The next key element is the Screenplay, which in this case is simply amazing.
When I first rented this movie and saw the length of the film to be a little over 3 hours, I thought it would be a waste of a good 3 hours of studying time.
No other film comes close to defining those sentences as much as Paul Thomas Anderson's riveting multi-character drama Magnolia.
Merely reading a plot summary won't do anything.If Paul Thomas Anderson's only film was Magnolia, that would still make him the best filmmaker of my generation.
Magnolia is like a massage and even while writing this review, I still feel it juicing my brain and allowing to think and know that film is the most important and most powerful medium ever created.
If you were truly gripped watching this flick, you are a certified movieholic.A truly great film always makes me "feel" something, as if your soul (or spirit or human essence, whatever) is touched during  specific moments throughout, or, at the film's end -- Magnolia shoots blanks, leaving you wondering if you missed something.
It is only with variety that a compelling performance is made.It's hard when you're working with such utter tripe of a script.There are a lot of big named actors that participated in this monstrosity, and I don't know why they accepted the part they did.It is the worst movie that I have ever seen.
If I can help someone avoid wasting their time watching it, then I will have done a good deed for the day.Of course, if you'd like to use this movie as an example of how bad a movie can be made, have at it.Personally, I think it was far worse than "Heaven's Gate" which I actually saw in the theaters on opening night.
I didn't really like it the first time around, mainly because of the way the characters reacted to the bizarre incident that concluded the film(I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet).
However, I gave it a second chance, and I think that it's a really great movie that uses it's three hours wisely and pays off brillaintly and intelligently in the end.The film follows the lives of nine characters in a series of stories that are seamlessly interwoven together in a way that flows through perfectly and is never boring to the viewer.
The point of the film was a look on life, how bad it can be for people, and yet, how we as human beings can make it good and still find happiness and goodness even in the worst situations and pains of our lives.
Like many people, I saw Magnolia based on Anderson's work with Boogie Nights.
Paul Thomas Anderson followed up the dazzlingly audacious "Boogie Nights" (1997) with the even more (if possible) audacious saga of emotional meltdowns over one dark night in L.A. in "Magnolia," and left people scratching their heads.There's an awful lot going on in this movie all the time, and I can see how it would be a turn off for some.
Anderson has one big hairy set of bull balls to make a 3+ hour epic full of dark soliloquies, death, disease and an impromptu musical number performed by the entire cast, sustain an emotional tone as tightly strained as a piano wire for almost the entire film's length, and then cap the whole thing off with a rain of frogs."Magnolia" isn't the most disciplined film ever made, and Anderson's film-making hysteria sometimes runs away with his stories, but it sure is one endlessly fascinating piece of work.
PT Anderson's sprawling character epic is nothing short of brilliant, eviscerating the lives of a vast array of tortured souls in the San Fernando Valley.Magnolia presents to us the seemingly totally different, separate lives of twelve people having quite a trying and tumultuous day.
There is so much to enjoy about Magnolia, besides it's well-written, provocative characters: the film's cinematography is so beautifully rendered that the camera seems to be working on it's own, weaving seamlessly through hallways and long shots without any cuts.
Aimee Mann's haunting songs also add a potent touch of misery and darkness to the already unsettling script.From it's overwhelming opening set-up accompanied by the miserable tune "One" to it's Biblical ending, it's an emotional epic that plunges the viewer into the depths of its character's personal hells and shows that closure and redemption can be a painful but ultimately necessary part of life.Easily one of 1999's best, most ambitious films, and ranking in my top 10 of all time, Magnolia is an emotional tour-de-force that touts a great ensemble cast, a beautifully written script, stylish camera work, and a great soundtrack.
(Pay attention to the closing credits on the game show, by the way, or you'll miss one of the connections.)You have to suspend a bit of disbelief at the climax, but it makes perfect sense in the larger context.A profound and deeply affecting meditation on life, love, loneliness and the things we do to blot out our pain, Magnolia asks you to walk in another person's shoes before you cast judgement on them.
A child genius pees his pants on live TV, Tom Cruise (sporting some kind of greasy Samurai hairdo) screams about respecting the male genitalia, Bill Macy fantasizes about a guy with braces, and just when you think it might all be coming to some kind of logical, blissful "tie-it-all-together" ending, IT STARTS RAINING FROGS.On a positive note, Philip Seymour Hoffman and John C.
A Gem in Filmmmaking, A film that sucks you in like the legendary plant.'Magnolia' interweaves nine separate yet connected story lines, about the interactions among several people during one day in the San Fernando Valley, in Los Angeles, California.
Second was the script, I found that by the end of a long tortuous three hours I couldn't care less if the characters lived, died or didn't even bother finishing the movie.
As such, the flick almost feels like a waste of the enormous and, as Anderson himself puts it, unmerciful three-hours and eight minutes of your time it takes up.
Magnolia, the second large release from Boogie Nights writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson, offers its viewers a rather lengthy, but worthwhile, view of the lifes of 9-10 main characters living in the San Fernando Valley, California area.
It thinks it's a profound commentary on parent-children relationships, but ends up being an awkward, pc, at times unintentionally funny, bore.Lowlites include the opening montage (which totally confuses the viewer), the pants wetting tension, the coke head/cop unconsummated love affair (how can you not consummate an affair with a cokehead?), the tender gay drinker, and of course the (damn) frogs.If you want to see a film that really says something about parents and children and the space between, then go rent Hud (Paul Newman).
To get a really good idea on what watching Magnolia makes you feel like, have someone poke you incessantly for three hours while coming down off of an amphetamine high.
One good thing about this movie is that it finally made me realize that I really don't like Tom Cruise; horrible acting for a horrible character by a terrible actor--very fitting.
Surely a film has to have decent characters and a good script before it is going anywhere, this movie has neither, (apart from Tom Cruise's Frank Mackey, who is very amusing in the first hour).Much has been made of the films interlude where the cast are all individually shown singing "Wise Up".
Apart from the opening, the only thing that made the movie worth watching was the much-talked-about weather anomaly near the end of the film.