Magnolia
Paul Thomas Anderson is the master. While that isn’t meant to be a hilarious pun on his back catalogue, Anderson has produced some of the best known works, hitting high percentages and critical acclaim everytime he trots out a new one. From the cult classic Boogie Nights to the recent There Will Be Blood and The Master Oscar nomination. The director and screenwriter seems to have done no wrong, collecting different famous faces on his way and giving them a unique role to play that will change and shape them.
Magnolia is perhaps the definitive of all of Anderson’s praise.
Set in the San Fernado Valley, Los Angeles, Magnolia revolves around different lives and a game show named “What Does A Child Know?” Although initially the interspersed lives seem apart, it soon unravels that they are all connected in someway. Along the way we meet Frank Mackey, a penis evangelist giving self-help to men, a cop Jim who is just trying to do his job, a previous star of the show all grown up, a star of the show now who is battling against grown-ups and a drug addict dealing with a troubled past and present. Magnolia sees how little ripples and little touches can effect in small vignettes that loop and connect. With stars from Tom Cruise to Julianne Moore, the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman and John C Riley, it is a beautiful if slightly off movie.
Warning now, this is a three hour slog. And it is one of those films that you think will end at one moment, but carries on. That is pretty much all the negatives from this film. It is visually and emotionally one of the most impressive and fantastic movies of the Anderson’s work. The story is thick with this poignant moments that punctuate and cut in deep. Anderson has an eye for character and cinematic detail is mind-blowing, creating interesting camera angles, switches between character and more, sliding through fames and people. Though wholly an unfinished film, with tangents and stories left out on the slab, it still is an in-depth and beautiful look into humanity.
Not that it isn’t without it’s silliness but that utter absence of logic in a lot of parts is key. It feels more humanistic that way. The excavation of this souls on a journey to happiness are pulled to one another and pulled apart in the bizarre ways. Who hasn’t felt that complete insanity has lead them down the right or wrong path? The ending may come out of nowhere but it is so much like life that it doesn’t defy logic, it embraces the madness of life.
In Magnolia, the acting is of a different calibre and instead of just playing, they all mould into this effortless beings and coherce all layers of emotion. Amazingly done, not one person is more or less important. They are bitter, jaded, hopeful and they come together in the best ways, remembering their souls that have been battered through their lives. It is achingly honest in the realism because realism is that insane. Magnolia is just brilliant.
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