Magnolia (1999)

I've heard Magnolia referred to as one of the best films of all time; a modern day classic. That's a lot of hype to go into a movie with, but with such praise, I couldn't ignore it either. I've put this film off for so long because of the huge amount of expectations I had for it, and also because it's another long movie; a running theme with these final films. This movie also has a gigantic cast that is going to be difficult just to list, let alone explain all the roles. Hit the jump to see if I was convinced of Magnolia's greatness, or if it was perhaps over hyped just a little too much.


The story of this movie revolves around co-incidence, chance, and random connections that link many many little stories together. You have a little boy genius in a game show, an elderly dying man and his trophy wife who has come to honestly love him, a pair of flawed strangers who see perfection in each other, and a chauvinistic public speaker who makes his money teaching men how to trick women into bed. That may seem like only a handful, but there are often stories in all the characters surrounding these people I've already mentioned. There's the male nurse taking care of the old man, the game show host, and a now adult previous winner of the game show the kid is now on. Finding out how all the main players connect to each other is part of the charm.

Tom Cruise plays the chauvinistic public speaker.

To say this film's story is complex is an understatement. Unfortunately, it's not so much that the story is detailed and intricate, so much as it is comprised of a bunch of random feeling, pointless little stories. A lot of the stories seem to be a theme on respect or appearances being different from reality, but to be totally honest, I wasn't interested or captivated by a single one of the stories or any of the many many characters that flood this film.

A cop and a drug addict see more in each other than they see in themselves.

I suppose that leads me to the acting. It all seemed good enough, and I really can't complain about much of it, except for one performance in particular. Probably one of the biggest billed stars of the movie, Tom Cruise, was the most annoying and overacted character in the whole thing. I didn't like him, care for him or his story, and the only thing I thought whenever he came on screen was that I just wish he would go away. I can't even get into all the other actors because after Tom Cruise, there are still 10 or more actors that have either equal screen time, or an equally important role in the movie. Julianne Moore, William H. Macey, John C. Reilly, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jason Robards... I could just keep going. There was just too much going on for me.

A young trophy wife comes to grips with the death of a husband she suddenly finds herself truly loving

As a film that is nothing more than a straight drama, the only thing it has to hook me are its relationships, and the emotions being stirred by them. This is probably where my biggest personal problem came from for this film; I just didn't care about anything going on. I can certainly see how it would be possible for a person to feel something for the characters, but it just didn't happen for me. There really is a lot of deep things going on, and different people could get different things out of this film; I just happen to be one of those who gets nothing out of it.

I think it's possible that this film became a victim of its own hype. I think I was simply expecting far too much out of it. Even the totally weird unexpected ending event wasn't enough to save it for me. It's certainly quite a unique film, so if you want to see how a bunch of initially random people and stories all link together in one way or another, by all means, give it a shot. It's not the first film I've seen do this kind of thing, Crash comes to mind. I really wish I liked this more, but what can you do? I didn't hate Magnolia, I just didn't really like it. I know that's a fine line, but I can only be honest with how I felt about it.

One more movie left.