“Now I'll die, and I'll tell you what... the biggest regret of my life... I let my love go.“

Magnolia is a brilliantly crafted and excellently written work of art from Paul Thomas Anderson.
It entertains the idea of serendipity, and follows a group of people with seemingly unrelated stories that join together through weird circumstance.

Paul Thomas Anderson did it again. I am absolutely astonished by his talent in writing, how he creates such powerful dialogue that feels natural and never overdramatic. He created such profound moments that really gripped me and some moments that made me laugh hysterically, but he never slowed the pace down for one second; the three hours fly by. From the hilarious and then fast paced intro to the wonderfully bizarre end it always remains incredibly fascinating to watch.

It’s quite an ambitious film to do for someone’s third feature film, but he pulled it off fantastically. A film that has many many different storylines can either be fantastic or a train wreck, but this is definitely the former. He balanced them all very well and never neglected any plot lines, treating them all as equally important. He also writes so many great characters that were really interesting to follow, and were supported by their amazing actors.

Obviously the star of the show is Tom Cruise, who is surprisingly brilliant. He deserves that title because every second of time he has on screen he makes the most of it. He’s bold, he’s crass and unbelievably funny. All the ‘Seduce and Destroy’ moments had me in stitches. His enthusiasm as Frank T.J. Mackey filled up every scene and made it impossible for me to take my eye off of him. It pains me to see him get boxed into cliché action movies or rom-coms, because the amount of emotion he displays is very impressive. 

Julianne Moore put on a very depraved and erratic performance that feels overwhelming to watch. The amount of desperation she presented was just devastating to watch. Her breakdowns and crying episodes were intense and filled with emotion, often feeling almost suffocating to sit through.

Philip Seymour Hoffman is another noteworthy performance. He’s not nearly as bold as the previous two actors but he adds so much subtle emotion that makes him so watchable. He was given quite a gentle role, but he still manages to create something equally as compelling as all the other bold performances in the movie.

My favourite performance in this film though, personally, was Philip Baker Hall as Jimmy Gator. He gives a very gripping performance and his character is certainly interesting and complex, but it was one scene in particular that made me sit there in awe and that was the scene where he is reading the bonus question on his quiz show. He blew me away with all the subtle sadness slowly seeping through the mask Jimmy Gator puts up for television. The trembling in his voice, his slow realisation that he’s losing it, how he struggles to hold back the tears and keep it light whilst not being able to think properly, all of them were astounding to watch and frankly just blew me away.

Other great actors in this film were John C. Reilly and William H. Macy who both are both compelling in their screen time, Earl Robards who had some very moving monologues, Alfred Molina with his extremely short amount of time on screen and Melora Walters as Cynthia, who put on an erratic and bold show.

The film has one major fault that is luckily drowned out by all the amazing things this film has to offer, and that fault is the singing sequence in the middle. I got what it was trying to do but it just came across as awkward and out of place. The film that came before it and the rest of the film that came after were unbelievably good, but that’s the one let down I feel. It doesn’t matter enough to diminish this film’s excellence.

Because this film is excellent. My favourite Paul Thomas Anderson movie is always changing and it’s currently between this and The Master, but I think this might just take the throne.

PTA RANKED