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| Movies,
Simon Anderson,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F4
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As films go, at over three hours long, Magnolia is a bit of a Ghandi. If Magnolia was an inflight movie on Korean Air, I'd only have to watch it about four times. Now, that doesn't mean it's a bad movie, in fact to the contrary, it's quite a powerhouse and not really that sleepworthy, but honestly, three hours long?!
Magnolia is unashamedly a lot like 'Shortcuts' (Robert Altman). But whereas with 'Shortcuts' I felt safe, happily some distance from the characters (and I think it's a great movie), with Magnolia, I felt right there, inside it, in its bowels, up the anal cavity, in the hand wrenching firing line. Where 'Boogie Nights' got alarmingly intensly violent, Magnolia gets alarmingly intensely... tense.
It's a serious film and fittingly, it has a serious cast including; Jason Robards, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michael Bowen, William H. Macy, Melora Walters, John C. Reilly and Tom Cruise. And they are all actually quite serious, blazing performance stuff! Even if it is a bit of a
stretch to imagine Tom Cruise as a king of sleaze sex TV god! No, actually, he's quite serious too.
And the plot? Well, in a nutshell, it's lots of interwoven lives, and if you think the're not at the beginning, they will be at the end. Of course,
they've all got their problems, deep ones and one way or another these problems, and their lives, reach a sort of crescendo at the end. The beginning might seem a bit infathomable, but wait for three hours, and it's worth it, it's rewarding.
And why it's really called Magnolia, I won't say, and it is a bit knowing and crap anyway -a bit of a gag. But written, produced and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, you can't really knock it can you?
UK rating:
18
US rating:
R
Paul Thomas Anderson1999, US
Jason Robards , Julianne Moore , Philip Seymour Hoffman , Michael Bowen and Tom Cruise
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