JuniorMagnolia
Written & Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Linda (Julianne Moore) is the young wife of Earl (Jason Robards) who is dying. Nurse Phil (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is there to offer his care and help track down long lost son Frank (Tom Cruise) who is now a specialist as "getting the girls". Earl owns a production company which produces the longest running quiz show on television which brought wunderkid Donnie to fame, but now Donnie (William H. Macy) is hard on his luck. On the show currently is wunderkid Stanley (Jeremy Blackman) who is getting frustrated and has daddy issues. The host of the show is Jimmy (Philip Baker Hall) who has a daughter Claudia (Melora Walters), who he has given daddy issues. Claudia is a drug addict who, once introduced, quickly falls for lonely cop Jim (John C. Reily).
Fair enough, we got ourselves an interconnected vignette driven feature film with a good number of characters and great actors. These can often times be a mess (Paris Je'taime or New York, I Love You). And even in the hands of an accomplished director like PT Anderson (Whose films I have seen,
There Will Be Blood,
Punch Drunk Love, I have loved) it might become a little bit shaky. The first hour or so of this three hour marathon was pretty slow and meandering. It didn't seem to have a direction and the characters simply existed, interacting with each other, but rarely making an impact. I was worried I may be wasting my time, but I have learned my lesson before: "Finish the dang movie and maybe the ending will bring it all together." So I did, despite the three hour runtime.
Cue the music! Next we get the longest montage of important, emotional events laid out in front of us to the cue of the musical score. It seemed like it went on for a half hour, but it kind of really worked. Then cut the music all together and let's talk about this. Phil has something to learn from dying Earl. Again, sheer brilliance, but this time with no music. Then you know what? Let's all sing a song. Okay, cue Aimee Mann's "Wise Up" and the whole cast of characters can sing it out loud to themselves for a brief moment. Strange? Yes. Wrong? No, it didn't seem to break anything that was going on, it just worked. Okay, so snap back to reality, oh there goes gravity and what are all these
frogs falling to the ground for? No one seems to know, no one seems to care, they have bigger fish to fry. Is it strange, does it make sense? Well, they can take care of that later, point is they aren't oblivious.
Wait, what happened? Did that really happen? I mean sure, the
frogs falling from the sky, but what about what PT Anderson just did? He spent three hours of character development. Eddie Marsan would be proud, but more importantly I'm proud of myself for sticking it out. What bold filmmaking. I'm-not-going-to-dumb-it-down-cut-out-important-things-for-the-sake-of-time-I'm-going-to-show-you-everything-I-want-you-see-everything-that-will-make-this-all-make-sense-at-least-some-what Anderson. All the performances were pretty great too. I especially loved the characters of Jim (John C. Reily) and Phil (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Chalk another one up for Anderson and another one for the "Didn't like it at first, stuck with it to love it" category of movies.
****Next Up: To Kill a Mockingbird