Magnolia and Coincidence

"We all fall down. People look up. And when it rains it pours." - Tagline

I am going to do something interesting and combining a blog on a thought of mine, and of others I believe, with a movie review that is connected to that thought. I am doing this review here because Netflix has too many damn restrictions for me to do it there.

I watched the 1999 P.T. Anderson film 'Magnolia' last night. I started at around 11:30 and ended around 2:40 when the movie was over. The plot contains several stories that cannot exist without each other. This is typically called Hyperlink Cinema: a philandering game show host (Phillip Baker Hall) is dying and attempts to find some sort of catharsis while screwing up on said show. The show is a Jeopardy-esque game called "What Do Kids Know". The top kid (Jeremy Blackman), a child prodigy, faces humiliation and sorrow when put in the hands of the cold television people and turned into a gimmick, all for the prosper of his even colder golddigger father. The boy is a lot like a former kid genius, Quiz Kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) who, up to his eyeballs in debt, tries to impress a young male bartender. The game show host's estranged daughter (Melora Walters) is a unstable drug addict who is lucky enough to get a date with a sweet as can be police officer (John C. Reilly), who faces belittling because of his low rank, even though she may sabotage this opportunity for happiness.

Meanwhile, a sensitive caretaker (Philip Seymour Hoffman) tries desperately to get in contact with the son of a dying man (Jason Robards). The son turns out to be an eccentric macho informercial man (Tom Cruise) promoting his new book Seduce and Destroy. He is caught in an interview with a persistant reporter (April Grace) who tries to break him down gradually and get past his rather unique barriers. The dying man's disturbed trophy wife (Julliane Moore) is trying to buy a lot of medication and arrange a new deal with her lawyer regarding her husband's will (it's not what you think).

Some of these strange stories intertwine. They are all explosive and dramatic. They are all resolved by the same thing. An act so unbelievable, you will keep talking about it afterward. If you are going to see this movie, don't act pissed or appalled at the way things turned out because the film's narrator implies at the beginning that something like it will happen (though I never would've guessed it would be something of it's caliber). I mean good god, it's incredible, it's biblical, it's gives the term "whatthefuckerry" a place in the english dictionary. And yet still, it ends with some form of grace.

I felt Magnolia was a film about many things: social issues, estranged relationships between children and parents, guilt, regret, redemption, reconcilliation. But the film itself states, by way of a narrator, that everything in it will revolve around one strange occurance. Roger Ebert, a more well known critic, raved about Magnolia as having "operatic ecstasy". I agree. Mixing music with outbursts of passionate emotion does create an opera feel I suppose. Magnolia, maybe more than any other film is an actor's wet dream. Why? Because it is made for an ensemble cast and there is no star. Everyone is given a character that has a fair and equal share of depth and story. The whole cast is superb, literally everyone. The film was nominated for three Oscars: best supporting actor for Tom Cruise, best original screenplay for Anderson, and best song by Aimee Mann. All deserved nominations. The film is extremely well written and directed just as well, Paul Thomas Anderson is a true genius at darkly comedic drama (Boogie Nights, Punch Drunk Love) or just plain epic drama (There Will Be Blood) but he claims that this one is his baby. His all time movie. It is indeed epic, and it's beautiful, and dark, and funny, and sweet, and, heartbreaking, and intricate. It's a little slice of life that has one punchline no one sees coming. It is a five star movie plain and simple. Be warned though, if you can't invest yourself in a movie, you probably shouldn't watch this because it's three hours long, but totally worth it.

In the very beginning of the film, the narrator gives us three stories of remarkable chance, urban legends I suppose: 1) in 1911 a well to do englishman was murdered at his place of business on Greenberry Hill, London by three men who were ironically named Mr. Green, Mr. Berry, and Mr. Hill. Coincidence? In 1983 firefighters put out a forest fire by way of an aerial shower (i don't know the term) and found a dead scuba diver in a tree. The scuba diver was picked up by the plane that put out the fires, he died of a heart attack mid air. Turned out to be a jack of all trades who worked mostly as a blackjack dealer at a casino, he was attacked a few days before his death by a stressed out gambler. The gambler turned out to be the pilot that picked up the diver unkowingly and killed him, overcome with guilt at realizing this later the pilot killed himself. And of course the one I had heard before, in 1958 a guy jumped from the top of an apartment building to commit suicide, but on his way down he was killed by a shotgun blast. Ironically the blast came from the window of his own apartment where his parents were threatening each other with guns and the mother missed and accidentally fired, killing her son as he fell. Even more ironic the son turned out to be the one who loaded the gun prior to jumping the roof, hoping his parents would kill each other in one of their arguements. And even more ironic a safety net had been installed earlier for window cleaners, the net would've broken the son's fall and prevented the suicide, this unfortunately meant the parents went to jail for murder. These stories are all arguably true.

I know what you're thinking. Things like that can't just happen. Something that complex can't just be chance. That's what the film begs: that coincidence is the true myth. Our lives can be affected by accidents of chance or these "coincidences can be considered everyday occurances. Strange things happen in this strange world of ours? Perhaps. They happen as commonly as the rain perhaps. The circle of life involves more than just man and animal. It contains everything we don't see. Why do the clouds in the sky look like things sometimes? Perhaps something provokes them to. Could it be that everything in the world we write off as coincidence and take for granted actually happens for a totally more detailed reason? Not God necessarily, but just something else. These things perhaps happen because nature provokes it. Much like our minds provokes us to do certain things. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm just caught in the euphoria of a good movie and maybe it all is just one of those unexplainable things that happen for no reason. But what fun is life if we can't develop our own theories of the everlasting mysteries.

This has been a semi-movie review by Your Modest Guru. Thanks for reading.