Magnolia was absolutely perfect. The sheer scope and ambition alone is amazing, but the fact that it all comes together, that PTA managed to pull it all off, is incredible. This huge mosaic of intertwined stories, of individually fantastic performances and moments that weave together to create this audacious tapestry of a movie. The flawless opening sets the stage and introduces the many seemingly disparate characters, all played by an unparalleled ensemble cast, but as the movie gets underway, connections and similarities emerge as the storylines begin to entangle. Listing all the things that make the film the masterpiece that it is would just mean listing everything that makes a movie. Magnolia is beautiful, it's perfect, it's the second best movie I've ever seen and I love everything about it.

This movie has me at a loss for words. 3 hours just flew by. It's amazing what PTA was able to do with so many different characters and make us care for them and bring them together.

For the first 2 hours I really didn't know what to think about this: I appreciated the craft but plot lines felt like depicting a painting without the brushes acquiring a significance. Then, in the last hour, PTA pulled the wires beautifully, diving deeper into the characters and deeper into their connection.
William H. Macy, John C. Reilly and Melora Walters were especially outstanding. Tom Cruise as well - I couldn't have imagined the depth of his portrayed character after having seen him till the interview, which was a greatly made turning point.
Both the speech at the gas station and Jim/Claudia date and frailty coming out and together was touching, as the final smile and hopefully healing.
"I really do have love to give, I just don't know where to put it" was heartbreaking and probably the single line that struck me most in the whole movie

Carried by extraordinary performances and a case study in pacing, this was one hell of a movie. Some plot point issues for sure, but very entertaining and engrossing.

Like each of writer / director Paul Thomas Anderson's other films, I found Magnolia excessively long, desperately wordy, hopelessly plodding and wholly hypnotic. Anderson has developed an innate talent for crafting versatile, flawed, joylessly realistic characters facing the end of their rope, and in that regard this might just be his finest work. While the author's deliberate pace is admittedly a major hurdle, it also allows him to explore his cast to an intimate degree that's untouched by his contemporaries. His characters seem so resistant to forward momentum, in fact, that the eventual arrival of major plot developments often caught me completely by surprise, like being stabbed in the heart by a sloth.

Though Tom Cruise, Julianne Moore and William H. Macy deliver the most rewarding performances, this is really an ensemble piece that would fall flat without the presence of an equally powerful supporting cast. A terrific exercise in characterization, it can be tragically narcoleptic.

That was a good film with a good message and all the events happening from the different characters were good and the casting was great.

It's like Pulp Fiction. A quirky, less-action, drawn-out (it's got a 3-hour runtime!), more-emotional, star-studded Pulp Fiction. I can't, in good conscience, recommend this film to the average movie-watcher, however, I will say this... it was actually somewhat enjoyable. You just have to parse through a lot of elements to find the enjoyment. The culmination, at least provides some sense of closure. I won't say anymore, for fear of spoiling, but, you will NOT see the ending coming.

One epic movie.

Everyone has a tragic backstory and wants to love, be loved, forgive and/or be forgiven. I get it. But did it really need to take 3 hours to convey this? SO unnecessarily long. My favorite performances were probably Hoffman's and Reilly's, which grounded the film for me, but the overall narrative just lost my attention so many times. I wish the characters' lives had been more interconnected, or there were more "chance" encounters between them, or there had been less core characters to focus on and it had been a tighter story. The payoff at the end was not worth the time.

Was really looking forward to watching this. Ended up disappointed. Maybe I just don't get PTA.

Level "Interesting" • 7 :heart: • Entertaining and Good.

I’m not too fond of PTA’s movies that wander around for hours without a plot, but “Magnolia” was both entertaining in its over-the-top moments and strangely touching in its dramatic bits.
It portrays an average day of depressed people in Los Angeles, with showers of regrets, loneliness, bad parenting, and one more thing I won’t spoil you. The introduction wants you to believe that the film is going to be a mosaic of different stories destined to come together through coincidences to deliver something bigger, but in the end, it might all be just a product of chaos. Don’t expect big epiphanies, and just enjoy the ride.

The absurdity of American suburbia.

This movie is a masterpiece, plain and simple. Not one of the stories is uninteresting.

" I will drop-kick those fuckin' dogs if they come near me"

Disappointing. Too many threads that all want to ram poignancy down your throat. Also boring.

Everyone of the main characters (and there is a lot) has at least one scene when they're screaming about something. Not sure who had more Tom Cruise or Julianne Moore, but I counted at least 3 separate screens each. And who every thought of making a scene where you use shaky cam well giving somebody medicine needs to be kicked in the groin. The raining frogs took whatever patience I had left.

A messy and incoherent execution of the _Pulp Fiction_ format.
It’s overstuffed with narrative threads and unfocussed.
Its theme (which ultimately sort of ties everything together, loosely) isn’t all that profound and in fact quite basic when you break it down.
Technically, the constant use of background music gets very nauseating (especially when it constantly tries to inform you how to feel as a viewer), and the sound mix is shit.
The acting is fine, it’s not even that hard to care about most of the characters, but the only person that really stands out is Tom Cruise.
At the same time, his character feels kinda out of place with the tone of the rest of the film.
It does have better pacing than _Pulp Fiction_, which is mostly thanks to most of this film being edited like a big montage.
There’s also some great directing and cinematography in it,
But it honestly felt like a waste of time to me, it doesn’t accomplish much with its 3 hour runtime.

3.5/10

PTA is an artist storyteller. Performances were brilliant. Why Cruise didn't at least get an Oscar nom is unexplainable. Heart-wrenching tale about the pain fathers inflict on their children and the forgiveness necessary to break the chain and move life forward.