MAGNOLIA

Paul Thomas Anderson gained many critical raves for his examination of the porno industry in BOOGIE NIGHTS. He is garnering even more kudos for his new movie MAGNOLIA, a three-hour satirical drama about trying to heal broken family relationships. Unlike the first movie, the main heroes of this piece are a healthcare worker who tries to fulfill a dying father’s last request and a Christian policeman who becomes attracted to a woman who, unknown to him, has a drug problem.

MAGNOLIA is really an ensemble piece, however, focusing on many characters. That’s the main reason why the movie lasts three hours – Anderson just tries to do too much.

Briefly, then, Jason Robards plays a dying cancer patient named Earl being tended to by a healthcare worker named Phil, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman of FLAWLESS and HAPPINESS. Through Earl’s incoherent mumblings, Phil discovers that Earl is having deep regrets about cheating on his first wife and about completely abandoning his son Frank (played by Tom Cruise in an angry but very effective performance) and his wife when his wife got terminal cancer years ago. Frank is now the famous leader of a sex cult for men, called Seduce and Destroy. He tells men to think of women purely as sex objects and gives them crude strategies for convincing beautiful women to fornicate with them. Eventually, the movie reveals that Frank has a deep anger and hatred toward his father. The movie also reveals that Earl’s second wife Linda, who’s much younger than he, is having deep regrets about cheating on Earl and about marrying him only for his wealth and power. Linda’s thoughts of regret, however, turn to suicidal feelings.

In the movie’s second major story, John C. Reilly plays Christian police officer Jim Kurring. After silently praying in the morning before the crucifix on his bedroom wall, Jim encounters an irate black woman who’s hiding a corpse in her bedroom. Then, he goes to the report of a disturbance at Claudia Gator’s apartment. Like Frank in the first story, Claudia is also estranged from her father and has turned to cocaine to relieve her pain. Jim doesn’t know that, however. He is, in fact, a lonely guy who’s been asking God to help him meet the right woman. He is immediately attracted to Claudia and tries to find an excuse to be with her as he lectures her about lowering the sound on her stereo. They arrange a tentative date, but Jim almost misses the date when he accidentally loses his gun during a rainstorm while patrolling a crime-ridden area.

Claudia’s father Jimmy happens to be the host of a TV game show featuring whiz kids that is actually produced by Earl’s company. Jimmy is also dying of cancer and has been a philanderer. The movie’s third major story focuses on one of Jimmy’s segments. During the segment, Jimmy is clearly suffering from the pain of his cancer. One of the whiz kids on the show, a shy, smart kid named Stanley, played by Jeremy Blackman, tries to tell the adults, including his father, that he has to go to the bathroom, but no one will listen. Like Claudia and Frank, Stanley feels terribly estranged from his father, who can only see the green cash Stanley earns using his quick, intelligent mind. Stanley’s predicament eventually brings about his own vocal complaints about the way adults usually treat children like him.

There are other characters and plots in MAGNOLIA that come to bear on these three major stories. It would take too long to relate them all. Suffice it to say, though, that a sudden but bizarre miracle of biblical proportions occurs near the end of the movie. There is even a reference to the Bible which foreshadows the miracle. This miracle resolves some of MAGNOLIA’s many plots and subplots, but leaves others hanging. The movie ends, however, on notes of catharsis, repentance, forgiveness, and redemption. Jim the Christian policeman even debates with himself about the need for goodness and about where punishment should end and forgiveness begin. Best of all, Jim brings a possibility of redemption for two of the most disturbed characters in this complex drama, and that is where MAGNOLIA ends, with a smile of hope.

Partly because of Jim’s sympathetic character, MAGNOLIA appears to have a moderately strong Christian worldview. The scenes of repentance, regret, forgiveness, and reconciliation reinforce this quality. Despite all that, however, there are brief gratuitous sex scenes early in the movie and a scene where a troubled man expresses homosexual desires for a muscle-bound bartender. There is also much strong foul language throughout, especially by Cruise as Frank, Robards as Earl and Julianne Moore as Earl’s second wife, Linda. Finally, there is a narrated prologue that seems to be a very cynical dissertation on “fate,” a pagan, non-Christian concept. This prologue is mitigated by the character of Jim the Christian policeman and by the sudden miracle near the end. This miracle seems more like an Act of God than an Act of “Fate.” Still, all of the strong negative content, much of which is clearly offensive, means that adult viewers must be strongly cautioned before seeing this movie.

Another message in MAGNOLIA may be disturbing to viewers and that is the fact that all the fathers in the movie are negative role models. The movie probably should have given some balance to these images, to contrast the negative role models with a more positive one that viewers can follow in their own lives. One of the reasons for keeping moral discipline in every Christian church is to help men not only to be better fathers but also to be better and faithful husbands. This is a message that the director, Anderson, could well have put in his movie, if he understood more fully what being a Christian truly means.

Anderson is able to get some of the best performances of the year out of his actors. One could cite Cruise, Moore and Hoffman, but the work of John C. Reilly as Jim and Melora Walters as Claudia also deserves mention. Their time on screen together lightens the dark mood and characters in MAGNOLIA. Jeremy Blackman is also good as Stanley Spector, the whiz kid child on the TV game show.

Clearly, Anderson is an extremely talented director. It would be interesting to see what he might make of more family-friendly material, as David Mamet and David Lynch did earlier this year with THE WINSLOW BOY and THE STRAIGHT STORY.