Think: "Short Cuts" on steroids, on
morphine and, for 10 minutes, on acid (you'll know which ten when
you see them).
The roster of characters is too large to list here, but there are a few that stuck out for me. LAPD Officer Jim Kurrina (played by John C. Reilly) gets my "most believable character" award. Easily the most human cop you've ever seen at the movies. It was nice to see Philip Seymour Hoffman (the slovenly obscene phone caller from "Happiness") as a nurse. His patient, dying TV mogul Earl Partridge is very authentic and engaging. One of the better "dying old man" characters I've seen (maybe because actor Jason Robards had just recovered from a real-life bout with life-threatening illness). Earl's estranged son Frank Mackey (Tom Cruise) is a loathsome, chauvinistic Andrew Dice Clay style lecturer pushing his "Seduce & Destroy" program for aggressive promiscuity. These are but a few of the folks you'll meet.
Practically everyone in this film has some kind of skeleton in their closet. Or should I say, each other's closets. The numerous storylines join together mostly with bonds of scandal and misery.
I thought "Magnolia" was very good, but I have to say: three hours is a long time to be sitting through so much relentlessly bleak and depressing content. The film opened at a frantic pace, but it gradually tapered off, like a sports car coasting in neutral. Writer & director Paul Thomas Anderson keeps things unpredictable enough that the film doesn't descend into complete monotony. Even so, I get the feeling that it might have benefited from a bit more preliminary trimming of the script.
But what can I say? I'd rather see 2 movies' worth of material compacted into one extra long one than watch 5 minutes of substance get stretched into 2 hours. So my short attention span got challenged. That's my own problem. I recommend this movie as a very well-done slice of life.