Magnolia

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🎙️ EPISODE 413: 03.03.22 PTA's previous film, Boogie Nights, featured a large ensemble cast of characters in various stages of insanity, decay and/or malaise in Los Angeles. It was big, bright and somewhat overlong. Magnolia also features a large ensemble cast of characters in various stages of insanity, decay and/or malaise in Los Angeles and is big, bright and somewhat overlong. On the surface, these are very much a pair, an extension even. But when you stop and actually look at them they are vastly different. And, in my opinion, it's this movie that marks Anderson's entry into the elite group of master filmmakers.

Subject aside, Boogie Nights is actually an extremely conventional film. It follows an almost paint-by-number 3-act structure as we follow a single protagonist through a classic rise and fall story arc. Its ensemble is responsible for most of its success, but materially they aren't much more than window dressing. Magnolia does away with that notion completely and unapologetically. This wasn't a new idea and, to some degree, was part of a larger mid 90s trope which was already on the way out by the time this came out. It's as messy as it is bold, constantly flirting with disaster in its experiments with form. Like its characters, the movie itself seems to be searching for some new way to be, to exist in the world.

I will forever have a soft spot for this feature. I appreciate it for its weird maximalism as much as I do for its plentiful and wonderful singular performances (it's crazy to think that Tom Cruise starred in both this and Eyes Wide Shut in the same year. 1999 broke him. He never again dared take a role even 1/10th as daring as these. And that's too bad because he's so good in both). Anderson, of course, would go onto make much better films. But damn if it doesn't feel like he first had to create this to get there.

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 412 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 414A ⫸

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Magnolia is a 1999 American epic psychological drama film written, directed and co-produced by Paul Thomas Anderson. It stars an ensemble cast, including Jeremy Blackman, Tom Cruise, Melinda Dillon, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ricky Jay, William H. Macy, Alfred Molina, Julianne Moore, Michael Murphy, John C. Reilly, Jason Robards (in his final film role) and Melora Walters. The film has a mosaic of interrelated characters in search of happiness, forgiveness, and meaning in the San Fernando Valley. It was released on December 17, 1999.