My god, what a mess. What a crazy, glorious, inspired mess. Much like the characters who Ping-Pong around the eventually surreal milieu of Paul Thomas Anderson's Let's-visit-the-San-Fernando-Valley-again follow-up to "Boogie Nights," this is a film out of control. Which is not to suggest that "Magnolia" is a bore. Unlike "Three Kings" that seemed to run out of steam as far as innovative and kinetic presentation (come on, who really gave a s**t about Clooney and Co. helping the fleeing Iraqis once the third act limped in?), "Magnolia" goes full-tilt until the credits roll. The only way you know this film clocks in at 188 minutes is to time it.
Anderson keeps things moving at a clip that makes your average Joel Silver production seem like Merchant & Ivory. Expanding the use of the techniques he used expertly in "Nights," Anderson zooms around these scenes so energetically you might think you had stumbled into an action film by mistake. Tracks with zooms, tracks with whip-pans propel you into and around scenes. No boring static shots here. A dinner scene between "Nights" alum's John C. Reilly and the wonderful Melora Walters is shot from a low angle so that even though we know that both are flawed, their stature is raised so we can admire their attempts to connect.
Fancy camera moves and superb editing can only hold your interest for so long. As with "Boogie Nights," Anderson excels at getting top-notch performances for his characters. With the exception of Burt Reynolds and Mark Wahlburg (who was out underwhelming in the aforementioned "Kings"), almost every actor shows up in "Magnolia." Tom Cruise is good, damn good in his juicy role of a very un-Alan Alda-ish self-help guru for p-whipped males, yet at its core it's still a part we've seen him play before in "Jerry MacGuire" and "Rainman." He's no more impressive than Julianne Moore, and Moore's quite impressive. For my money, the best performance rests either with Walters or Phillip Baker Hall. Until his turn here, Hall has always seemed a bit too arch (like his library detective on a "Seinfeld" episode). Even "Hard Eight" doesn't let him show the character's vulnerable side as he is allowed to in "Magnolia."
As for Walters, if nothing else she should certainly have etched her name into the consciousness of a casting agent or two with a performance that manages to be brittle, hard and very endearing. Similar to the character she played in "Boogie," porn neophyte Jessie St. James, here she adds an edginess to what could have been a standard lost waif role. When added to the others, it makes it very hard not to recommend this film. But Anderson never really goes anywhere with his One Day In The Valley story that seems to be more than inspired by "Short Cuts." Unlike the end of "Boogie Nights" that finds Dirk Diggler returning to his "family" having learned some hard lessons about his place in life, it's hard to draw any such points from "Magnolia," although the events of the last half hour are loopy enough to almost forgive that.
Anderson keeps things moving at a clip that makes your average Joel Silver production seem like Merchant & Ivory. Expanding the use of the techniques he used expertly in "Nights," Anderson zooms around these scenes so energetically you might think you had stumbled into an action film by mistake. Tracks with zooms, tracks with whip-pans propel you into and around scenes. No boring static shots here. A dinner scene between "Nights" alum's John C. Reilly and the wonderful Melora Walters is shot from a low angle so that even though we know that both are flawed, their stature is raised so we can admire their attempts to connect.
Fancy camera moves and superb editing can only hold your interest for so long. As with "Boogie Nights," Anderson excels at getting top-notch performances for his characters. With the exception of Burt Reynolds and Mark Wahlburg (who was out underwhelming in the aforementioned "Kings"), almost every actor shows up in "Magnolia." Tom Cruise is good, damn good in his juicy role of a very un-Alan Alda-ish self-help guru for p-whipped males, yet at its core it's still a part we've seen him play before in "Jerry MacGuire" and "Rainman." He's no more impressive than Julianne Moore, and Moore's quite impressive. For my money, the best performance rests either with Walters or Phillip Baker Hall. Until his turn here, Hall has always seemed a bit too arch (like his library detective on a "Seinfeld" episode). Even "Hard Eight" doesn't let him show the character's vulnerable side as he is allowed to in "Magnolia."
As for Walters, if nothing else she should certainly have etched her name into the consciousness of a casting agent or two with a performance that manages to be brittle, hard and very endearing. Similar to the character she played in "Boogie," porn neophyte Jessie St. James, here she adds an edginess to what could have been a standard lost waif role. When added to the others, it makes it very hard not to recommend this film. But Anderson never really goes anywhere with his One Day In The Valley story that seems to be more than inspired by "Short Cuts." Unlike the end of "Boogie Nights" that finds Dirk Diggler returning to his "family" having learned some hard lessons about his place in life, it's hard to draw any such points from "Magnolia," although the events of the last half hour are loopy enough to almost forgive that.