Magnolia (1999) – Nostalgia Central

Anybody who claims to know what Magnolia is about is lying.

The beauty of Magnolia, though, is that it doesn’t have to mean anything. The half dozen storylines – which take place during a single 24-hour period – hang together, but so loosely that tying them up in a neat bow would seem ridiculous.

If you like conventional narrative, then Magnolia – which clocks in at three hours and 15 minutes – might be too long a haul without an easy punchline waiting at the end. But if you’re willing to indulge experimentation and treat yourself to a film that might be unsatisfying in the traditional sense, but will contain so much that’s fresh and inventive, then you may find the film isn’t quite long enough!

The opening half hour is the picture’s most daring. After that, writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson falls back on the comforts of traditional narrative, albeit at a swifter, more challenging pace than most.

To start, Anderson describes three murders, all having the most bizarre of coincidences. The best is the luckless chap who leapt off the roof of an apartment building and was shot in the chest and killed on the way down. Turns out he wouldn’t have been killed by the fall – window washers had erected a net which would have saved him – and it was his own mother who fired the shot (accidentally) through her apartment window. To make matters eerier, the dead man himself had loaded the gun . . .

Scenes like these simply serve as appetisers to the main action, drumming home one of the movie’s themes – that there really isn’t any such thing as coincidence.

The film abandons its Ripley’s Believe It or Not mode and, in a frenetic sequence, introduces the central characters, who are linked only by their sometimes very peripheral connection to a TV game show called What Do Kids Know?

While Aimee Mann sings the old Three Dog Night number One and we hear voicemail messages, TV broadcasts and characters speaking, the film cross-cuts back and forth between the long list of Los Angelenos who populate the film. Our senses are on Red Alert – there’s so much to take in so fast. It’s absorbing because of that.

Here’s a list of the main characters and what they do:

• Tom Cruise, in the funniest segment of Magnolia, plays Frank Mackey, a hypermasculine self-help guru whose philosophy of penile supremacy, aimed at the gelded men of Fight Club ilk, is “Seduce and Destroy”.

His machismo oozes from every pore – until his past catches up with him.

• Wealthy TV producer Earl Partridge (Jason Robards) is dying of cancer, attended by nurse Phil Parma (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who tries to honour Partridge’s last wish by contacting his estranged son.

Meanwhile, Partridge’s younger trophy wife, Linda (Julianne Moore), realises that although she married Earl for his portfolio, she’s fallen in love with him just in time to watch him die.

• Boy genius Stanely Spector (Jeremy Blackman) can become the all-time record holder on What Do Kids Know? But first, he has to deal with his exacting father, Rick (Michael Bowen).
• Former boy genius “Quiz Kid” Donnie Smith (William H Macy) is struggling to deal with the ordinariness of adulthood.
• Veteran What Do Kids Know? host Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall) learns he’s dying of cancer, and he has some things to get off his chest – revelations that will devastate his wife, Rose (Melinda Dillon).
• Gator’s angry cocaine addict daughter, Claudia (Melora Walters), meets and falls for a goody-two-shoes LAPD cop named Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly).

Some of the subplots crisscross, and some don’t. But the stories are braided together by an ending sequence that refers back to the message of the movie’s introductory section – that nothing is a coincidence.

All is resolved in a rain of frogs signposted by several onscreen references to “Exodus 8:2”.

Sir Edmund William Godfrey
Pat Healy
Mrs Godfrey
Genevieve Zweig
Joseph Green
Mark Flanagan
Stanley Berry
Neil Flynn
Daniel Hill
Rod McLachlan
Delmer Darion
Patton Oswalt
Craig Hansen
Brad Hunt
Sydney Barringer
Chris O’Hara
Arthur Barringer
Clement Blake
Faye Barringer
Miriam Margolyes
1958 Detective
Frank Elmore
1958 Policeman
John Kraft Seitz
Frank T.J. Mackey
Tom Cruise
Jimmy Gator
Philip Baker Hall
Young Jimmy Gator
Thomas Jane
Rose Gator
Melinda Dillon
Claudia Wilson Gator
Melora Walters
Stanley Spector
Jeremy Blackman
Rick Spector
Michael Bowen
Quiz Kid Donnie Smith
William H. Macy
Little Donnie Smith
Benjamin Niedens
Dr Lee
James Kiriyama-Lem
Phil Parma
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Earl Partridge
Jason Robards
Linda Partridge
Julianne Moore
Nurse Juan
Juan Medrano
Officer Jim Kurring
John C. Reilly
Marcie
Cleo King
Dr Landon
Don McManus
Captain Muffy
Michael Shamus Wiles
Gwenovier
April Grace
Doc
Jason Andrews
Geoff
Kevin Breznahan
Avi Solomon
Miguel Pérez
Solomon Solomon
Alfred Molina
Dixon
Emmanuel Johnson
Librarian
Lynne Lerner
Cynthia
Felicity Huffman
Richard
Bobby Brewer
Richard’s Dad
Bob Brewer
Richard’s Mom
Julie Brewer
Julia
Natalie Marston
Julia’s Mom
Nancy Marston
Julia’s Dad
Maurey Marston
Dick Jennings
Danny Wells
Mary
Eileen Ryan
Dr Diane
Meagen Fay
Mim
Patricia Forte
Luis
Luis Guzmán
Todd Geronimo
Patrick Warren
Worm
Orlando Jones
Pink Dot Girl (voice)
Virginia Pereira
Pink Dot Guy
Guillermo Melgarejo
Brad the Bartender
Craig Kvinsland
Thurston Howell
Henry Gibson
Burt Ramsey
Ricky Jay
Chad/Seduce/Destroy (voice)
Paul F. Tompkins
Janet (voice)
Mary Lynn Rajskub
Barfly Jim
Jim Beaver
Alan Kligman Esq.
Michael Murphy
WDKK Show Director
Robert Downey Sr.
Hot Date Infomercial
Aimee Mann

Director
Paul Thomas Anderson