Magnolia
Did Paul Thomas Anderson assemble the best ensemble cast of all time?
Directed By: Paul Thomas Anderson
Other Notable Films From Anderson: There Will Be Blood, Boogie Nights, Punch-Drunk Love
Starring: Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Melora Walters, William H. Macy, and a whole bunch more
Screenplay By: Paul Thomas Anderson
Movie Synopsis: A collage of storylines loosely tied to a TV game show intersect over the course of one day.
Signature Line: “Respect… the cock. And… TAME! the cunt.”
THE INTRODUCTION
An accounting of time, and people, and context
Magnolia—Paul Thomas Anderson’s follow-up to his 1997 masterpiece Boogie Nights—is a mess. It’s too long, and it’s overstuffed, and it’s so self-indulgent that some moments make me legitimately nervous the movie is going to snap itself in two from how hard it’s bending over trying to suck its own dick. Curiously, though, those are the exact reasons why I (and so many other people) love it.1
I love Magnolia’s ambition (it is, in effect, several different movies at once). And I love the contradiction of its scope (despite its symphonic nature, everything takes place over just a single day in California’s San Fernando Valley). And I love what it represents as a creative exercise (in short: go the fuck hard, or go the fuck home). And I love the backstory that explains why the movie is so grandiose (after the critical and commercial success of Boogie Nights, Anderson was essentially given carte blanche on his next project). Most of all, though, I love the cast, which I would argue is the greatest ensemble ever assembled.
So rather than the normal timestamped rewatch thing that typically anchors each GOOD MOVIE essay, I’m doing something different. This time, it’s a collection of all the parts and pieces of Magnolia that make it great—the individual characters, the cinematography, the soundtrack, the editing, even the fucking frogs—arranged by exactly how great each element is.
THE VIEWING
A collection of organized greatness from Magnolia
The THIS IS GREAT Tier
The Frogs
Wonderful showing from the frogs. Very memorable. I’ll never forget them. This guy here—the frog who splats down onto an off-duty police officer’s windshield when the frog shower begins—is my favorite. I love how dramatic he is, with his little frog arms splayed out and his mouth slightly open. What command of the screen he has. You can tell just from this one screenshot that he came up with a whole backstory for his character. He probably even death-whispered something like “Tell my frog wife… and frog children… that I frog-love them” right before he frog-died. What an actor. What a performer. What a storyteller.
P.S. The frog shower is the thing I’ve changed my mind about the most since first watching Magnolia. During my initial viewing back in the early 2000s, I was like, “Ummm……… what the fuck is this stupid shit???” But now when it happens, I’m like, “Paul Thomas Anderson…you fucking genius, you.” I’ve been fully Anderson-pilled.2
