Magnolia

Review: Part 3 of my journey through PTA brings us to his 1999 drama, ‘Magnolia.’ While this film contains a similar tone to Anderson’s prior two outings, it is drastically different in its content and is much more bleak. Like most of his films, it features a pretty impressive ensemble and some familiar faces. Making their third appearances are John C. Reilly, Philip Baker Hall, & Philip Seymour Hoffman, while Julianne Moore, William H. Macy, Melora Walters, Luis Guzmán, Alfred Molina, Ricky Jay, & Thomas Jane. Tom Cruise & Jason Robards also play major roles. This is one of those movies that I think maybe didn’t land correctly on me because I didn’t fully ‘get it.’ It just wasn’t quite as overt as his first two, which isn’t a bad thing.

High: Tom Cruise, you crazy son of a gun. I absolutely love Cruise as Maverick & Ethan Hunt, but I really hope he gets back to the point soon where he’s showing his acting versatility. He does great stunts & cool stuff, but it’s crucial to remember that Cruise really is a legitimate actor up there with the very best.

Low: I like the score/soundtrack for this movie, but I feel like sometimes it drowned out what I was supposed to be paying attention to (there was one point where that was intentional). And the music kept making me think we were about to get some big culmination and then some of the scenes just kind of abruptly ended. Another low was that I felt like I didn’t connect with any one character, which is something that did happen with the first two PTA films.

Rating: 7.5/10