One is the loneliest number

MAGNOLIA

The 25: Wondrous, wrenching rebel cry that strikes nerve after unguarded nerve.

As far as openers go, an attempted suicide turned manslaughter ain’t bad. In the prologue of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, we swoop over the roof of an apartment building as 17-year-old Sydney Barringer leaps to his death, eyes closed, fists clenched, farewell note crumpled up in his pants pocket. We follow him down, down, down towards the asphalt in a conventional Hollywood camera angle, only to have our carefully established expectations shattered when the unthinkable happens-a gunshot bursts from an apartment window and rips a gaping hole in Sydney’s stomach. Flashback to a few seconds ago (another original concept); Sydney’s parents are arguing vehemently when his mother, intimidated and empowered in equal measure, pulls out a gun that would have been empty had Sydney not coincidentally loaded it a few days ago. She pulls the trigger and a bullet goes through the window, hitting her son in mid-fall. In one of the most morbid punchlines I’ve seen, Sydney Barringer ruins his own laboriously planned suicide. As mommy lets out shriek after lachrymose shriek, we slowly inch back down the hallway, away from her, away from this story….the lighting becomes overexposed, hellish, eerie….voices echo on the soundtrack…a dissonant whine in the music builds, builds, builds-

Cue credits.

It’s my favorite opening scene in all of cinema, but that’s not the reason I choose to spill so much ink over this film’s first five minutes. In addition to setting up a key motif I daren't reveal, this sequence makes a promise, one so mad and thrilling and grandiose that you don’t believe Anderson and co. will deliver on it. How could he possibly sustain such a rich, resounding note of orgasmic, operatic intensity for three hours?! The thing is, he does, and from this breathtaking opening scene Magnolia only grows in its power and mystery. Hell, even after you’ve taken the ride once, you’ll appreciate the picture even more with each viewing-trust the guy who’s seen it nine times. This is an appallingly underappreciated tour-de-force, an exhilarating example of the cinema busting out of its own predetermined boundaries. Here, lovelies, is the best movie of the 90’s.

What's it about? So there’s Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), a dying millionaire whose trophy wife Linda, once a balm in bed, is now an overmedicated, undersexed wreck who employs male nurse Phil (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) to ease her husband’s pain and help him tie up loose ends before he goes. Only one unresolved conflict really interests Earl; his broken relationship with his son, Frank (Tom Cruise), a brazenly chauvinist motivational speaker who runs “Seduce and Destroy” seminars for men half as rich and twice as lonely as he is.

Frequently on Earl’s TV is Jimmy Gator (Phillip Baker Hall), a philandering game show host who plows away at his work even as his ticker starts to give out and his daughter Claudia (Melinda Waters) slips deeper and deeper into coked-out oblivion. However, redemption might await her in the arms of painfully endearing cop Jim (John C. Reilly).

Finally, there’s Quiz Kid Donnie Smith (William H. Macy), a former contestant on Gator’s show who’s grappling with his sexual identity, and Stanley (Jeremy Blackman), a current contestant desperate to break free of his pile-driving father Rick (Michael Bowen). They are all brought together in the film’s final hour, not by Crash-esque coincidence but by a shocking, supernatural occurrence straight out of Exodus. Oh, and there’s a sing-along, too.

None of this would work without the screenplay, which, at almost 200 pages, is still a model of economy. Go through Magnolia 190 minutes. Go on, do it. Tell me if you can find one scene that isn’t completely instrumental. There is something of the divine in this script; surely no mere mortal could juggle scenes of such startling variety with such staggering agility. We get a brief scene of anal sex so bruising we have to look away, followed by a wryly amusing moment where Macy gets fitted for adult braces. Cruise’s horrifying “Seduce and Destroy” sermon comes not long after Reilly and Waters take part in one of the most genuine meet-cutes in movies. Any single story thread could be plucked out and spun into a comedy/drama/romance/thriller of its own. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a screenplay more confident of where it’s going. You can always tell when a writer’s slapped a sequence of events down on paper for an easy paycheck and when they’ve planned their work, when it fits together like pieces of a jigsaw. There’s an underlying arc here that I want you to pay attention to; each individual plot plays like a long, squirmy, excruciating buildup following by a breathtaking, brutal emotional eruption. Each character drifts through life like a driver asleep at the wheel, headed for a jarring collusion yet fatally unprepared for it all.

Yes, it is as depressing as it sounds, but, like an actual car wreck, we never want to look away. The most brilliant aspect of the screenplay is how it teases us with poignant glimpses of these peoples innate goodness. Moore comes off as a spoiled bitch, but her meltdown at the pharmacy (how did it not win her the Oscar?!) shows a long- slumbering moral center finally reawakening. We're angry at Waters for throwing her life away, but touched by her quirky adherences to little niceties like offering guests a cup of coffee. Even Cruise's merciless man-child reveals a twisted compassion for those who attend his seminars. We stick around because, through the grind of vice and vanity, little glints of rock-solid goodness keep peeking in through the slits. We stay riveted, because, if these people's redemption is plausible, isn't ours as well?

If the screenplay is the tightrope, the actors are the walkers, and its a thrill to watch them at work. Anderson assembles the ensemble of a generation, and smartly plays on the performers public personas in order to expedite characterization. We already believe Tom Cruise is an arrogant prick, so we quickly accept that he's playing one. Phillip Seymour Hoffman has always seemed like an endearing teddy-bear of a man, so his nurse immediately has our sympathy. And, for all Moore's considerable skill, hasn't something about her always seemed a little cold off-screen? Mind you, this isn't to deny these thespians any credit. Each individual performance is flawless, filled with astonishing line readings and indelible non-verbals. Cruise in particular is an emotionally naked marvel as a character who, instead of ascending, shrinks, who starts off trying to drown out the world with his ignorant shouting and winds up crumpled beside a hospital bed, humbled and broken. Waters is an undernoticed wonder; she makes her keening despair alternately seductive and repulsive.

But in the end, it all comes down to Anderson's vision. It's a testament to the man's boundless inventiveness that this entire vision spewed forth onto scrap paper in a few weeks when he shut himself off in a cabin due to a bout of agoraphobia. It's a testament to his courage that this picture was made without compromise. He takes the piece exactly where it needs to go. When things build to such exaggerated proportions that only music will resolve the tension, he lets his characters burst into song, even though this is decidedly not a musical. This is a move most filmmakers would've quickly nixed; they'd recognize its brilliance but note that its not "essential to the story being told" or something like that. But Anderson sees beyond the mechanics of plot; he recognizes film as a medium of emotions, one that must provide structure, yes, but first and foremost supply us with awe, with agony, with catharsis. This is one of maybe a half-dozen films that seems to be made without the slightest self-doubt, with well-placed confidence that each carefully calculated risk will pay off. It's cinema on all cylinders. Aspiring auteurs would do well to check it out.

As you've noticed, this post is longer than my average column. That's because Magnolia isn't just a masterpiece. It's a milestone in my own moviegoing history. I was cultishly obsessed my freshman year, and I still pop the DVD in whenever I a) need a good cry b) a good envy binge courtesy of the screenplay or c) my faith in film renewed. But above all, I think, what brings me back to this movie again and again is one of its central themes. Look at these characters; almost all are disconnected. Buoyed on by the advent of transportation and technology, they have slunk off into urban anonymity, attempting to clip all close connections, and, thus, avoid the pain of loving. Frank ignores his father. Rick denies his son even the slightest affection. Linda parcels out her wifely duties to others now that sex is out of the equation. Yet, over the course of three glorious hours, these people come to a realization summed up eloquently by the Macy character; "I have a lot of love to give, I just don't know where to put it." The people on display here have tried to sever themselves from emotion, but, Anderson tells us, our desire to supply and need to demand compassion will catch up to us in the end. We will feel. We will grieve. We will grow. Get used to it. It's a message for the Twitter generation, delivered here without a drop of sermon-ific sap or false uplift. I can't think of a picture I feel more strongly about. Above and beyond its considerable technical successes lies the fact that this one nourishes something deep and vital within us. Take that, Marmaduke.