A majority of last year's films that I have seen are marked by two
things: actors unexpectedly improving on their thespian skills and the
ridiculously lengthy running times. Officially, "Magnolia," Paul Thomas
Anderson's latest study of the decrepit decadence that is Southern
California clocks in at 179 minutes. Nice try, buddy, but I know three
hours when I see it, and this film feels long. I eagerly sat
through Anderson's "Boogie Nights," the best film of 1997, twice (granted,
it was a German-language synchronized version the second time) but even
one viewing of "Magnolia" was a chore.
The takes a fairly good
stab, but ultimately fails to make a deeper statement about the
interrelatedness of individual destinies. Framed by vignettes purporting
to show that human existence encompasses too many coincidences that can
simply be written off as pure happenstance, the film follows the fates of
a set of quirky characters portrayed by a spectacular cast. The linkage,
however, is never made, the connections among the various players stay
frustratingly diffuse. Moreover, the film appears undecided whether it is
a tragedy, comedy, farce or, in the final third, a disaster flick
reminiscent of late '70s cinema.
The chief problem is that, hard as
Anderson may try to breathe artistic life into the film, the
pseudo-intellectual abstractions and ten thousand sub-plots inevitably
drown it. A prime example is the soundtrack, mostly composed and performed
by Aimee Mann. The songs are powerful, layered and fit neatly into the
subject matter of the film, but interfere acoustically with the dialogue.
What was surely intended as a cinematic gimmick turns into a messy
contraption that takes away from the high-quality performances.
The
best of these comes from Tom Cruise as Frank Mackey, an infommercial guru
who teaches men how to increase their success rates at getting laid. The
fact that a twerp like Cruise can convincingly pull off lines such as
"Respect the cock, and tame the cunt!" is compelling evidence that he is
entitled to an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. But he should
lose the Academy Award to Jude Law for his ambiguously homophobic turn as
Dickie in yet another overlong film of 1999, "The Talented Mr Ripley."
Cruise falters in "Magnolia's" big-drama scene in which he visits his
estranged, dying father, Earl Partridge (Jason Robards, good as ever).
Rosie O'Donnell's ostensible "cutie pattootie" love interest (cuz she
ain't no dyke, y'all) shakes and whimpers excessively, taking "the method"
a tad too seriously.
A veritable master of "the method," on the
other hand, is Julianne Moore who plays Earl's much younger wife Linda. On
its face, the role is pretty straight-forward: Linda marries Earl for the
cash but falls in love while taking care of him during his bout with
cancer and feels remorse. Moore turns the seemingly simple supporting role
into something more complicated and manages to hold the seams from
breaking. The only disadvantage to this role is that it is virtually a
reprise of Amber Waves from "Boogie Nights" but Moore deserves another
Oscar nod because she has been a hard worker at the turn of the
millennium. "Magnolia" is her fifth film released in 1999. She starred in
"End of the Affair," and played a supporting role in "An Ideal Husband,"
as in "A Map of the World" opposite Sigourney Weaver and in Robert
Altman's last film, "Cookie's Fortune" opposite Glenn
Close.
Another actor who has been kept quite busy over the past
year is Philip Seymour Hoffman who plays Phil, Earl's nurse. Presumably
best remembered as Scotty, Dirk Diggler's unrequited lover, Hoffman was
the terminally annoying Freddie in said "Mr Ripley" and Rusty, the
didactic transvestite, in "Flawless." Though he cries on command well in
"Magnolia," the part, on the whole, is superfluous. Uttering lines like
"this is the part of the movie where you help me," Phil mostly serves to
unsettle the medium of film. Woodie Allen has done this (over and over
again) in less than three hours and thinking about Manet's "DÈjeuner
sur líherbe" takes considerably less than that.
Another wasted
role is that of Donnie Smith, a former child prodigy and quiz whiz who has
grown up and is no longer cute. Nevertheless, William H. Macy, who
depicted Little Bill in "Boogie Nights," (hello, trend!) is brilliant
playing the part.
Anderson's staple actor, John C.
Reilly, is
equally good as Officer Jim Kurring, a good-natured cop who falls for
Claudine, a young woman very much evocative of the Offspring song "She's
Got Issues." Melora Winters, who was Jessie St. Vincent in "Boogie Nights"
(which would incidentally be cheaper to rent than seeing
"Magnolia")probably gives the film's weakest performance, screaming and
snorting cocaine like she doesn't really mean it, not unlike Margo
Schlanger.
The reason for her torment is an abusive father who
happens to be a game show host, played rather well by yet another
Anderson-flick veteran, Philip Baker Hall. Hall was Flloyd Gondolli in
"Boogie Nights," played the title role in "Sydney" (1996) and was featured
in Andersonís 1993 debut "Cigarettes and Coffee." In 1999, he was also Don
Hewitt in "The Insider," Alvin MacCarron, the slick detective who thought
he outsmarted "Mr Ripley," one of many in "Cradle Will Rock" and also had
parts in two less known films.
Since the film's title, "Magnolia,"
apparently has no significance, it should have more aptly been called
"Overachieving Character Actors Anonymous."
From www.the-buzz.com
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