As interesting as all of those stories are, however, the most interesting feature of Magnolia is that its director's last film was the 1970s porn industry quasi-exposé Boogie Nights. Lauded by the critics but shelved by the Academy, it featured gaudy, flamboyant photography and style -- quite the opposite of Magnolia. But in this vein, the two films could easily be combined: the former was filled with wretched, soulless living; the latter is a recovery from the drug-induced fog of that lifestyle. It is a transition of artistic merit as well as commercial value, as well as cause for the knighting of director Anderson as one of Hollywood's brightest.

      For those who haven't seen Boogie Nights, the evidence of Mr. Anderson's skill is still quite resplendent in Magnolia. His movie is nearly three and a half hours long, a length which falls well outside of the accepted 100- to 130-minute benchmark for the majority of commercial releases, but it is filled with characters whose stories are simply interesting. Their collective presence may be unbelievable -- try connecting a televangelistic sex guru with a former boy genius -- but Mr. Anderson wisely includes an opening chapter to his saga which illustrates that no chain of events, however coincidental, is entirely impossible.

      The film's central character is Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), a television producer lying on his deathbed and fighting a losing battle to cancer. He is attended to by his faithful caretaker Phil (Philip Seymour Hoffman), but is forgotten about by his young wife Linda (Julianne Moore) and his estranged son and aforementioned sex guru Frank T.J. Mackey (Tom Cruise). Elsewhere, Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall), host of Earl's longest-running game show, is also dying from cancer. His daughter Claudia (Melora Walters) and his wife Rose (Melinda Dillon) have been pushed away by his illness and his stubbornness; his daughter finds comfort in the arms of the good-natured policeman Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly). And on his game show, child genius Stanley Spector (Jeremy Blackman) begins to realize what former boy genius Donnie Smith (William H. Macy) already knows: fame only lasts fifteen minutes, but love lasts a lifetime.

      Writer/director Anderson lines these characters up on a collision course with one another, cultivating back stories and motivation for each of them during the film's opening hour. By the sixty-minute mark, there's the sense that the film is just getting started, and that greater things are yet to come. The audience has been hooked by the brief but effective instances of intense emoting, and will ultimately decide to come along for the ride simply to find out what sense this all makes. Slowly but steadily the ten principal cast members glide toward each other, like an elaborate domino layout which will culminate in some spectacular, all-encompassing finale. It is this payoff that is most crucial, and Mr. Anderson does not disappoint.

      But the movie's finish -- a scene that can only be described by words like "surreal" and "amazing" -- comes nearly two hundred minutes after the movie was begun. Mr. Anderson's chief task in preventing walkouts on his film is to keep the audience engaged, and he does this splendidly. He favors finely-tuned sequences that give the audiences successive shots of all ten characters at approximately the same time; the most memorable of these sequences comes in the film's final third when each cast member sings along with Aimee Mann's "Wise Up." Ms. Mann's music is featured as prominently as the original score by Jon Brion, who has composed lengthy, haunting pieces akin to those of Hans Zimmer's score for The Thin Red Line. Quite often the score will serve as the baseline of the movie for twenty minutes or more, and director Anderson uses this element to bridge several scenes together with style and class. The segment that builds up to the game show is fantastic: the cam! era winds down endless studio corridors, occasionally cutting away to various related characters, while the score builds up tension and audience anticipation.

      The entire movie is not always this engrossing, but it usually comes close. And for a film that's at least an hour longer than anything of comparable style and content -- and thus considerably more ambitious -- a few missteps can be forgiven. Most of the time, however, audiences should find themselves thoroughly enthralled by the cast of characters who masquerade before them, all excellently portrayed by the actors involved. Tom Cruise is as flamboyant as he's ever been as the sex guru Frank T.J. Mackey, and Melora Walters is effective as a worn-out young woman whose addiction to cocaine is a constant obstacle in her life and the lives of those around her. As the whiz kids afflicted by the machinations of a capitalist society, both past and present, Jeremy Blackman and William H. Macy are great as the lost souls; John C. Reilly, Philip Baker Hall, and Philip Seymour Hoffman are controlled but tormented individuals seeking a chance to start over with kindness; and Melinda D! illion, Julianne Moore, and the invalid Jason Robards are the unsympathetic characters that the audience loves to hate.

      Hopefully Magnolia will receive wider recognition than P.T. Anderson's last movie, for if there ever was a deserving film, this is it. It is interesting and inspiring, fulfilling and redeeming, amazing and surreal. It is the upper crust of drama, and although it may be widely received as fringe entertainment, always remember:

      This will all make sense in the end.

Craig Roush, 1999