Remember That Movie: Magnolia
Starring:
Phillip Baker Hall, Tom Cruise, Henry Gibson, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy, Alfred Molina, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Jason Robards, Melora Walters, Melinda Dillon, Luis Guzman, and Ricky Jay.
Take another look at that cast listed above. I thought I’d begin by listing the cast, because I felt it was worth pointing out how many people star in this slice-of-life tapestry set in the San Fernando Valley. It’s very Altman-esque in that way, as well as its naturalistic dialogue. Magnolia is very similar to Robert Altman’s early nineties film Short Cuts in that it also follows a couple of days of the lives of average people in a southern California region. They both also end with a sudden, bizarre event. However, Magnolia is a cut above Altman's film.
Magnolia is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and was his follow-up to 1997's Boogie Nights. While Boogie Nights was very clearly about people involved in the porn industry during the ‘70s and ‘80s, Magnolia is not so focused with its set-up. That’s not a bad thing; it just means that Magnolia is more complicated than its predecessor. Yet, I’ll quickly point out that it’s more complicated, but no less comprehensible. In fact, one of the great things about Magnolia is its ability to follow so many characters with such clarity while also avoiding getting lost in the maze or leaving any characters behind. That’s no easy task.
The film begins with a brilliant prologue narrated by Ricky Jay about coincidental happenstances in life that just so happen to merge. This is a prologue that opens with silent-era black and white that transition in flames to another story of accidental death and suicide – all of which are related.
“This is not just ‘something that happens.’ This cannot be just ‘one of those things’,” the narrator tells us, “These things happen all of the time.”
This narration not only segues neatly into the following introductory montage (more on that in a second), but also relates thematically to the film’s finale.
After this prologue, we’re treated to the opening notes of Aimee Mann’s cover of ‘One’ by Three Dog Night. The camera then zooms in to follow each principle character of the following three hour story. With a mix of steady cams, quick pans, zooms in and out, and medical charts, the audience is given everything they need to know about each character within the song’s duration. The prologue and montage make for a brilliant nine minutes of film that is alone worth giving Magnolia a watch.
Unfortunately, what follows is almost a completely different movie that fails to be as tightly cut or cleverly presented as those nine minutes. As a result, Magnolia goes from a “really great movie” to a “really good movie.”
Magnolia truly is a really good movie. Its story is about the things we do to those closest to us; how we take love for granted when we have it and when we don’t, how desperate we are to get love and appreciate it much more. This is primarily filtered through parents and their children and is handled in a subtle, non-didactic manner. A run-time of 188 minutes may seem daunting for such a story, but Magnolia manages to never wear out its welcome. When you think about it, that is quite an achievement and incredibly uncommon in movies. I think the filmmaking is the real reason why this is the case.
Magnolia is a film where characters move in and out of long tracking shots. A firing turns into a debate over whether a character should get braces. Two completely flawed, plain-looking people go on a date: an inadequate man of the law and a coke addict. During a montage, the principle characters sing the song playing in the background. One scene seems to occur at night until a sheet is incidentally pulled from a window in the background to reveal it is daytime. Oh, and then there’s the magical realism.
This is not an average slice-of-life melodrama about relationships with bland characters and conventional editing.
Magnolia is a film made by an extraordinary filmmaker. P. T. Anderson manages to take material that would be dull in anybody else’s hands and make something interesting and unique out of it. The performances by the cast are just as strong as the director’s handling of the material. It’s just a shame it’s not as solid as the first few minutes.
7/10
Should you see it? Rent
Magnolia is available on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Phillip Baker Hall, Tom Cruise, Henry Gibson, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy, Alfred Molina, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Jason Robards, Melora Walters, Melinda Dillon, Luis Guzman, and Ricky Jay.
Take another look at that cast listed above. I thought I’d begin by listing the cast, because I felt it was worth pointing out how many people star in this slice-of-life tapestry set in the San Fernando Valley. It’s very Altman-esque in that way, as well as its naturalistic dialogue. Magnolia is very similar to Robert Altman’s early nineties film Short Cuts in that it also follows a couple of days of the lives of average people in a southern California region. They both also end with a sudden, bizarre event. However, Magnolia is a cut above Altman's film.
Magnolia is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and was his follow-up to 1997's Boogie Nights. While Boogie Nights was very clearly about people involved in the porn industry during the ‘70s and ‘80s, Magnolia is not so focused with its set-up. That’s not a bad thing; it just means that Magnolia is more complicated than its predecessor. Yet, I’ll quickly point out that it’s more complicated, but no less comprehensible. In fact, one of the great things about Magnolia is its ability to follow so many characters with such clarity while also avoiding getting lost in the maze or leaving any characters behind. That’s no easy task.
The film begins with a brilliant prologue narrated by Ricky Jay about coincidental happenstances in life that just so happen to merge. This is a prologue that opens with silent-era black and white that transition in flames to another story of accidental death and suicide – all of which are related.
“This is not just ‘something that happens.’ This cannot be just ‘one of those things’,” the narrator tells us, “These things happen all of the time.”
This narration not only segues neatly into the following introductory montage (more on that in a second), but also relates thematically to the film’s finale.
After this prologue, we’re treated to the opening notes of Aimee Mann’s cover of ‘One’ by Three Dog Night. The camera then zooms in to follow each principle character of the following three hour story. With a mix of steady cams, quick pans, zooms in and out, and medical charts, the audience is given everything they need to know about each character within the song’s duration. The prologue and montage make for a brilliant nine minutes of film that is alone worth giving Magnolia a watch.
Unfortunately, what follows is almost a completely different movie that fails to be as tightly cut or cleverly presented as those nine minutes. As a result, Magnolia goes from a “really great movie” to a “really good movie.”
Magnolia truly is a really good movie. Its story is about the things we do to those closest to us; how we take love for granted when we have it and when we don’t, how desperate we are to get love and appreciate it much more. This is primarily filtered through parents and their children and is handled in a subtle, non-didactic manner. A run-time of 188 minutes may seem daunting for such a story, but Magnolia manages to never wear out its welcome. When you think about it, that is quite an achievement and incredibly uncommon in movies. I think the filmmaking is the real reason why this is the case.
Magnolia is a film where characters move in and out of long tracking shots. A firing turns into a debate over whether a character should get braces. Two completely flawed, plain-looking people go on a date: an inadequate man of the law and a coke addict. During a montage, the principle characters sing the song playing in the background. One scene seems to occur at night until a sheet is incidentally pulled from a window in the background to reveal it is daytime. Oh, and then there’s the magical realism.
This is not an average slice-of-life melodrama about relationships with bland characters and conventional editing.
Magnolia is a film made by an extraordinary filmmaker. P. T. Anderson manages to take material that would be dull in anybody else’s hands and make something interesting and unique out of it. The performances by the cast are just as strong as the director’s handling of the material. It’s just a shame it’s not as solid as the first few minutes.
7/10
Should you see it? Rent
Magnolia is available on DVD and Blu-Ray.