Magnolia: Review By soylent green Lantern

I believe I fell in love with "Magnolia" for the embedded patterns and well-placed logic that organizes this gorgeous superstructure of a movie. In the introduction the narrator recounts instances of eerie coincidences. Throughout the main story, the narrator suggests to the viewer that there is more to reality than "just" coincidences. The events we witness are not just random coincidences because there is a logic behind them: sometimes it is the past echoing into the future; sometimes it is the echo of eternal archetypes, recreated by ever-present circ*mstances. When watching the movie, consider the young black kid's words in the opening line of his rap, "Presence - with a double ass meaning".

Coincident echoes reverberate throughout "Magnolia". Featuring four separate "kid" stars, Stanley, Donnie, Jack aka Frank and Claudia, the film absolutely resonates with the same story played across multiple octaves. The story is cyclical in nature with snapshots of different parts of the cycle captured in a single day. We have seen the same incorporation of the cycle-of-life theme in writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's "Boogie nights", in which the cyclic rise, fall and replacement of a pornstar echoes the same story found in the classic "All About Eve" (1950), which chronicles the cyclical nature of a rising, scheming theater star. In the constant self-reference of P.T. Anderson's "Magnolia", this theme is expressed by the elder gay barfly, "...just a spoke in the wheel....Things go round 'n round..." But "Magnolia" recounts the cycle and then transcends it as the four Buddhas-to-be reach their personal epiphanies and learn to break the numbing cycle of uncaring, un-sentient living.

Self-referentially, the movie tells us that showbiz, both the formally staged variety and our everyday masquerades, is an echo of real life; and real life is an echo of the past. Both the narrator, the characters Jimmy and Donnie all remind us "The book says 'We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us.'" And Jack's "Seek and Destroy" persona is all about attempting to eradicate the past. But the past is ever-present and very alive as it echoes throughout the film. The falling frogs are echoed in the falling scubaman, both scooped up in freakish storms/accidents and dropped on a city full of people/burning trees. All these echoes are echoed by all the people and frogs physically falling everywhere in the film. Are we constantly condemned to fall into the past?

The movie is clearly based on a super-symmetrical blueprint carried in P.T. Anderson's head. Consider the two main parallel stories: Jack/Claudia, respectively, are the son/daughter of Earl Partridge/Jimmy Gator, two showbiz philanderers dying of cancer and their passive wives Lily Partridge/Rose Gator (flower/animal). The two fathers Earl and Jimmy are desperately seeking to reconnect with their children, Jack and Claudia, each of which deeply resents their own father for past wrongs. Despite the kid's loathing of their fathers, Earl's womanizing is echoed in Jack's systematic womanizing, while Jimmy's child abuse is echoed in Claudia's systematic drug abuse. The cycle appears to continue with the present repeating the past.

The two grown-up "kids" are echoed by the present whizkid Stanley Spector and the past whizkid Donnie Smith, both of who are or were star's of the TV game show, "What Do Kid's Know?". That these four characters share an affinity outside of the other well-drawn characters is supported by a super-symmetry, which organizes and informs us about the four kids. First, all four kids are struggling with childhoods stolen or being stolen by their parents: Stanley's obsessive and driving father, Donnie's greedy exploitative parents, Claudia's abusive father and passive mother and Jack's absent and uncaring father. More symmetries abound. For example, the senses: Claudia's nose, constantly snorting cocaine (smell); Stanley Spector's eyes constantly reading books (sight); Jack's ear constantly pressed to his cell phone listening to his many handlers (hearing); Donnie's constant obsession with his teeth and his eventual mouthful of blood (taste). Another symmetry, each of the four kids is on a stage: the withdrawn Claudia resides in her living room in front of the TV/stereo entertainment center; Stanley spends his time at the TV studio; Donnie spends his time at the public bar; Jack at the auditorium. The character's symmetries are sometimes forced but clear: Stanley pees on himself, Donnie falls with his head in the toilet and Claudia's noted use of the phrase "piss and sh*t" is only said by one other character, Jack, her symmetrical counterpart. Last, each of the kid's is echoed in a different medium: we see scenes of both past and present whizkids, Stanley and Donnie, on the TV; we see pictures of Frank T.J. Mackie in the porn magazines, we see Claudia's self-portrait as a girl in the painting "It Did Happen". The past thus manifests itself both physically as well as psychologically and we can appreciate this from four different angles.

What do kids know? With their epiphanies breaking at various parts of the film, they all seem to reach a similar conclusion: How to break the cycle of uncaring, mechanical living. KINDNESS: Consider Stanley's admonishment to his father "Dad, you have to be nicer to me". HONESTY: Consider Claudia's plea to Policeman Jim, whose name echoes her father's name, "I'll tell you everything and you tell me everything and maybe we can get through all the piss and sh*t and lies that kill other people..." Jack's COURAGE in facing his father's death and stepping up to take care of Linda, thus echoing the care he gave his mother, Lily. Donnie's LOVE: "I really do have love to give..." Of the four epiphanies, none is more touching than Claudia's unexpected and knowing smile directly at the viewer in the last second of the movie. What do kids know? They know that "...it's not going to stop 'till you wise up."