Magnolia (Anderson, 1999): Prince Charles Cinema, 2.55pm
This is a 35mm presentation also screening on January 7th, 16th and 30th. Details here.Time Out review:
Paul Thomas Anderson's
meandering multi-story megasoap with a message is over-ambitious,
self-conscious, self-indulgent, self-important and clumsy into the
bargain. But it's also one of the most enthralling and exhilarating
American movies in ages. Much in the style of Nashville and Short Cuts
(though lacking Altman's light touch), this intimate epic charts the
various fortunes, over a day or so, of various individuals living in the
San Fernando Valley - including the dying Earl (Jason Robards), his
young wife Linda (Julianne Moore), and his nurse Phil (Philip Seymour
Hoffman); Frank Mackey (Tom Cruise), prophet of machismo; and numerous
people associated, past or present, with a TV quiz show - whose paths
cross by design, destiny, chance or coincidence. Insofar as the film is
about 'story', little happens save that Anderson initially conceals
information, and then slowly scatters snippets so that we can piece the
jigsaw together. For all the humour, it's a dark portrait of loss,
lovelessness and fear of failure in contemporary America, and not a film
that trades in understatement. As the lost souls make their way towards
- what? - redemption? - a deus ex machina plot development occurs, as
contrived, ludicrous, bold and grandly imaginative as any Biblical flood
or plague.
Geoff Andrew
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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