𝐌𝐚𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐚 (1999) | 𝐏𝐚𝐮𝐥 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐀𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧

It's never easy for a director to juxtapose so many characters in a single film and yet give equitable importance to each one of them. Almost every character in Paul's world has a separate story of their own, each of which blends by the time the film wraps up.

The film starts with a montage of coincidences and then PTA takes us to his vicious world, where a bunch of personalities are diligent in their endeavour, sorrow and anguish. Magnolia heavily relies on music and Anderson does no wrong as he skilfully uses the score and songs to depict the solitude and tyrannical pain that connects the characters and the frustrations and hopelessness of the modern chaotic world.

There's plenty of stuff happening in Magnolia for most of its runtime but Anderson's screenplay is so watertight that it hardly rationalize the three-hour runtime. The film passes by like smoke as the film is wielded concurrently by the ensemble cast with John C.Reilly and Julianne Moore outshining their co-actors.

Is the climax underwhelming as many people claim? Might be.Might not. Anderson dabbles a very catastrophic move in the finale leading to polarising opinions but it works wonders for me. The dramatic change of events in the climax acts as shocking to some and ludicrous to others but Anderson's
a nod to the Bible passage is indeed applaudable.

Magnolia is a living testimony of the boundless imagination of the great Paul Thomas Anderson. Certainly my favourite work of his.