A stylish, virtually epic, and synchronistically informed ensemble piece, Magnolia is surely one of the most challenging films of 1999. Unfortunately, the picture's extreme length and handful of unnecessary side-trips prevent it from attaining the levels of transcendence reached by other recent works (American Beauty and The Straight Story, for example) tackling similar thematic terrain -- morals and responsibilities, life disappointments, family relationships, and the need for love. Employing (it would seem) a dozen or so of the cast members from the superior Boogie Nights, Anderson adds Tom Cruise to the mix in a turn that unquestionably represents the actor's finest work to date. Regardless of its shortcomings (the entire section with kid genius Stanley, played by Jeremy Blackman, felt entirely too much like Little Man Tate), a number of the film's risks -- including a most unexpected kind of rain and the tour-de-force montage employing Aimee Mann's "Wise Up" -- pay off with dazzling results.
