The Reel Deal: Magnolia blooms on the big screen

By TARA DEMPSEY AND RYAN LEACH

Magnolia is the next big thing from writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson, whose last movie was the un-compromisable Boogie Nights.

His latest epic involves nine plot lines that intertwine with one another, developing the connections between the various characters. There is no central character or plot line in this film - from Tom Cruise's role as a men's only motivational speaker to Julianne Moore's portrayal of the strung-out wife of his dying elderly father. The movie jumps back and forth so much that there is not enough space in this column to explain everything and everyone. However, all the characters are connected to the television game show "What Do Kids Know" (in some six degrees of separation way).

RYAN'S REVIEWFrom Boogie Nights to Magnolia, acclaimed director Paul Thomas Anderson loves to have a lot of stories taking place at once. In Magnolia though, he goes a little over the top by having nine stories play out at once. The problem is that the nine stories were held very, very loosely together. The stories of all the characters, if separate, aren't that wonderful. By taking the audience through all nine almost at once, it becomes more interesting.

This method causes there to be no main actor or actress, but a heck of a lot of supporting ones. The acting is what made this movie work, with Cruise giving the best performance. He has already been nominated for a Golden Globe and should also earn an Oscar nomination, as might Moore. All the other acting jobs were very solid, but some characters were too far over the top. After seeing this movie I can begin to see Anderson's trademark becoming established. His signature move, which he did in both this movie and Boogie Nights, is to all at once take every single character through hell, and see how they get out. By doing so he takes us on a very emotional roller coaster that helps us connect with the characters.

This movie is going to be like Boogie Nights in the sense that the first time you watch you start to see greatness, but it falters a little. You are going to have to see this one at least twice, maybe more, because there are a lot of underlying secrets. B-

TARA'S TAKEEven though Magnolia is over three hours long, Anderson did an excellent job of balancing the time between the different plot lines. He never spent too much time with one scene, but rather switched back and forth between the different plot lines giving the viewer just enough time to know the characters and become interested in their situations. Whether Anderson is contributing to our generations' short attention span or if he is simply trying to deal with it, I can't say.

While the movie is more depressing than Boogie Nights (the character's lives are traumatic from the start), the real drama happens to the characters in Magnolia when Anderson speeds up the sequences so that the time spent on each scene is minimal, which is a great way to create suspense. Conflicts are rarely resolved before a scene change, but are interrupted by scenes of other characters engaged in equally distressing situations.

One thing worth noting is that eight cast members from Boogie Nights returned to work with Anderson on this project. It seems Anderson may be in the same company as Kevin Smith (Dogma), recycling actors but not roles and surprising the viewer each time. A-