Michael Suarez
This happens. This is something that happens.
—Stanley Spector
It’s been 25 years since Magnolia premiered in theaters, and I haven’t gone a year without thinking about it. Quite frankly, I do a lot of thinking nowadays.
Getting older means a lot of things, and one of the big ones—the biggest for me—is losing those around me. My parents are old and barring an accident, they still have plenty of time on this earth, but it’s difficult to shake the very real reality that their end is closer than it’s ever been. That, of course, is obvious and the way life works, but I’ve maintained for most of my adult life that it’s one thing to know something and another to understand it. We are all fated to die. How and when that comes isn’t fated. Sometimes, it’s pretty random. Or is it?
It really comes down to perspective. Sometimes, life seems so random, while other times, it can be obvious why something is happening. It might not make sense that frogs fall from the sky, but chances are that it’s the result of some kind of weather phenomenon. Without that knowledge, though, it’s possible to become lost. We then have two options: learn or rationalize. To learn is the better option, even when we don’t like the answers.
When I first saw Magnolia, I was amazed by the filmmaking. I loved how the camera moved, the music, Earl’s speech, and the main cast singing Aimee Mann’s “Wise Up.” It’s a film I’ve always loved. Sometime in the past decade or so, though, I’ve come to realize that this is my favorite Anderson film, and quite frankly, I think it might also be his masterpiece.
As I get older, I see the films from my youth differently. They hit differently depending on the context, like seeing how racist, sexist, ableist, ageist, or classist a film I loved growing up actually is. However, for a film like Magnolia, I’ve come to see it as a miracle. Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson was in his late twenties when he wrote and then made the film. That he managed something so profound, and that features characters from so many perspectives, at that age is remarkable.
But it’s not simply the filmmaking or being able to tell multiple narratives that impresses me, though that certainly is. What impresses me more than anything is what Anderson has to say about grief, loneliness, regret, and forgiveness, as well as how all those themes tie to the randomness of fate.
I have lived such a privileged life, in that when I look back at my childhood, I don’t see the kind of trauma so many others had. I wasn’t Sydney Barringer, Stanley, or Quiz Kid Donnie Smith, and I certainly wasn’t Claudia. Like the average person, though, I certainly have my regrets, and it’s bittersweet to know I’m not alone in lying awake in the middle of the night thinking about something I did or didn’t do decades ago. Regret lives inside so many of us every day.
For me, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because I do my best to use my regret to motivate me to do things or not do things, depending on the situation. The earliest regret I have is from elementary. I did something cruel to a classmate, and for my life, I’ve never understood why. Even before the consequences arrived, I regretted what I had done. I’d like to say I never hurt anyone again after that, but that’s not true. One would think that this motivation to not do harmful things would actually have results, and to be fair, it’s not as if I go around hurting people every day of my life. But it still happens every now and then.
When I’m Earl Partridge’s age, what will the final summation of my life be? I doubt I’ll ever have a relationship that would result in marriage, as much as I used to want it. Still, even if I did, there’s no way in hell I’d do what he did. Strictly speaking as spouses, what are we to make of Earl, Linda, or Jimmy Gator? Infidelity is not something I’ve ever been able to wrap my head around, and even the guilt these three seem to feel, I’m not sure what I can say. All three are facing mortality in this film in one way or another, so I’m unsure if any of them would even regret what they did if death wasn’t so close to them.
I mean, hell, does Jimmy truly regret doing what he did to Claudia? I don’t see that, and frankly, I don’t see him all that regretful about cheating on his wife, Rose. There is something there, though, because he does try to take his own life. It’s a selfish moment, and fate doesn’t allow it, as the frogs fall just as he pulls the trigger. He doesn’t get off that easy.
As for Earl, the frogs make him lucid one last time before he dies, so he can have a moment with his son, Frank. What does that moment mean? I can’t say. While the frogs fall, Claudia is being saved from her own suicide attempt. Though her suicide attempt isn’t interrupted, I believe that since her regret is sincere, she is saved by the most overlooked character in Magnolia.
Dixon has a lot to do in the film, but because he’s never given a full story, it’s difficult to determine where he falls. Is he an instrument of fate? Are we all instruments of fate? He saves Claudia’s life, and that’s something. He tries to tell Officer Jim Kurring who committed the murder he stumbled upon. But where does he end up? He’s one of the youngest members of the ensemble, but I don’t believe he’s tied to Stanley in any way unless it’s about how parents treat their children. Dixon doesn’t appear to have the warmest homelife, what little we see of it.
Meanwhile, we know Earl and Jimmy sucked as parents, but what about Stanley’s father, Rick? Is he a bad father? I’m not so sure. I don’t think he’s a particularly good father, but like a lot of things in life, it’s pretty nuanced. He takes Stanley to school and tells him he loves him, and when Stanley returns the next morning, after running out on a game show he was on, Rick stays in bed. He doesn’t get up, yell, or beat Stanley. I believe there’s a part of him that not only understands why Stanley did what he did but understands that maybe things do need to change.
Still, Rick can be a bad parent. He recognizes his son’s intelligence, but he’s using it to “make some fucking money,” and he makes no effort to force the powers that be to just let Stanley go to the bathroom. When Stanley goes in the middle of the show, my heart breaks every time. I believe he wants to be there, but he also just wants to go to the bathroom. It’s terrible. He should be allowed to go to the bathroom.
All that said, Donnie had worse parents. He, too, was on What Do Kids Know? as a kid, and his parents took all of his prize money. Not only was he an exploited child, as a grown man, he doesn’t have much to show for it, aside from some celebrity. This is pure assumption, but I feel like Rick works, and as much as he talks about making money out of Stanley, I just don’t believe he would take all of Stanley’s earnings. I just don’t.
That doesn’t mean that I’m not happy that Stanley runs off in the middle of the game show’s taping. It’s a form of rebellion that Donnie most likely never tried, and like a lot of narratives about multiple generations, there seems to be a point here regarding how simply not adhering to what you’re told can save you from a life adrift, something of which younger generations are usually more progressive. Donnie doesn’t seem all that happy, his only light being a bartender with braces who looks right through him if at all.
And damn, I just have to say how much I love that moment Donnie walks to the bathroom with Supertramp playing. Fantastic, as is his heartbreaking drunken speech that gets him nowhere except the decision to rob his former employers. When he explains things to Jim near the end of the film, I often wonder what happens next. Is Donnie on his way to turn himself in? I doubt it. Has Jim offered him a second chance? I believe so.
Officer Jim Kurring is a highlight for me, though he wasn’t always. Sometime in the past 25 years, I’ve come to see so much of myself in Jim. I’m a single, lonely person who believes in doing the decent thing, but I also can screw up so much that the embarrassment genuinely hurts. I understand why he’d want to pursue things with Claudia. They have some kind of connection, and if I ever found that, I wouldn’t want to let it go.
That final shot that stays on Claudia, as Mann’s Oscar-nominated song “Save Me” plays louder than the dialogue, is such a warm embrace after three hours of heaviness. Jim returns to her place after a night of half a date, time spent with a sad man, and frogs falling from the sky. He wants some stability. I doubt he understands just how much Claudia needs and wants that as well. I’m elated the two found each other.
So many of the characters end up alone, but not all of them. Frank found some closure with Earl, and I often wonder just what comes with his relationship with Linda. What do the two of them do? Hell, what’s next for Phil, the nurse who takes on the quest to reunite father and son? He’s so broken by the end, and I can’t imagine how he could feel to have been so close to something that never really involved him. I think about how many people who have changed my life, people whose names I’ve long forgotten. Where are they now?
I turned 40 this year, and my parents are in and out of clinics and hospitals far too often now. Being bleak was never my thing, but over the past few years, I’ve felt this sense of cynicism creeping into me, and I hate it. Optimism hasn’t been my modus operandi for decades, but I do my best to stay hopeful from time to time. I have no idea what the future holds.
Is it possible that the frogs fell from the sky as some kind of deus ex machina? From a storytelling standpoint, I would say no, because the central thesis of the film is that sometimes things happen. Weird, strange things happen that either don’t make sense or are too coincidental. To dismiss them outright misses the point. Again, there’s most likely a logical explanation to everything, but it’s not really about the answers sometimes, is it? It’s not about what happens in the future, per se, but just knowing something will happen.
On the outside, Frank has it all worked out, so much so that he sells tickets to tell others (men) how to be successful (in doing some dark stuff), but we know the truth, just like Gwenovier. Frank T.J. Mackey is a persona. On the inside, he’s a mess of man. Perception is so much a part of our lives that we sometimes forget to look underneath it. There’s more to everyone. Jimmy Gator was beloved, but he was a serial adulterer who molested his own daughter. Claudia is a drug addict, but she’s been through some awful shit.
Jim gets this. He really does. As much as Earl’s speech about regret moves me to no end (Jason Robards also deserved an Oscar nomination, alongside Tom Cruise), it’s Jim’s forgiveness speech near the end of the film that says it all:
And what most people don’t see is just how hard it is to do the right thing. People think if I make a judgement call that’s a judgement on them, but that is not what I do. And that’s not what should be done. I have to take everything and play it as it lays. Sometimes people need a little help. Sometimes people need to be forgiven. And sometimes they need to go to jail. And that is a very tricky thing on my part, making that call. I mean, the law is the law. And heck if I’m gonna break it. You can forgive someone. Well, that’s the tough part. What can we forgive? Tough part of the job. Tough part of walking down the street.
Amen, Jim. He’s talking about being a cop, but that speech applies to us all, doesn’t it? Doesn’t it at least apply to most of the characters in the film? Seriously, what can we forgive?
We will all die one day. It could be an accident, our decision to do something to ourselves, violence, or we just come to the end of our lives. I don’t want to be Earl. I’m thankfully not Jimmy. Frank, Claudia, Stanley, Donnie, and Linda are out of the question. That leaves Jim and Phil. Phil does the right thing, but in the end, it’s just a job for him, however emotionally attached he gets. Jim really does seem to be the one for me.
Will I ever find my Claudia? I doubt it, but if I do, I have two big questions: will it be fate that I find her, or will it be random, just something that happens? Is it both? Is that even possible? I believe it is. If I don’t know why the frogs fall, it’s random. If I know why, it’s fate. “These strange things happen all the time,” the narrator tells us. Yet, at the same time, according to the opening, even though it’s strange what happens to Sydney Barringer and his parents, it can be explained. It all depends on perspective. We know, or we don’t know.
So, where does that leave me? What do I do with my regret, loneliness, and grief? How can I begin to forgive? It’s simple. I just live. I don’t know what today or tomorrow will bring. I might be able to predict it, but it’s all just guesswork until it happens and I’m proven correct or not. I can’t move forward without coming to grips with the very real idea that, yes, I will lose those I love, and they might very well lose me. I can seek a life with someone or choose to be alone and content. Regret can hold me back, or I can use it as a proper motivator. I can be Jim and not dwell on the frogs. Rather than take Donnie to the station, I can help him out and even offer to get him in contact with someone who can fix his teeth. And instead of feeling sorry for myself when Claudia leaves me alone at that table, I can go see her the very next day and tell her how I feel.
I can do all of these things, or I can grow old and end up like Earl, asking, “What’d I do? What’d I do?” As the film tells us, “We may be through with the past, but the past isn’t through with us.” Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia remains a triumph of cinema, and it sucks to hear him talk about how it should be shorter. I respectfully disagree. The runtime might be long for some, but it flies by for me. It always has, even back when I used to watch it over two videocassettes.
The cast is a wonder and should’ve won for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture at the Screen Actors Guild Awards that year. No matter. The film speaks for itself. It’s so well made and has so much to say, but it’s not one of Anderson’s more discussed works. That’s a shame because it’s more than flashy filmmaking, Aimee Mann songs, and a 188-minute runtime. Magnolia is the film of 1999, because it uses everything available to filmmakers at the time, and rather than tell a specific story with those tools, Anderson decided to tell every story. The result is a masterwork.
I have grown quite a bit over the past 25 years, but Magnolia hasn’t changed one bit. To me, it’s pretty perfect, and that cannot be random.
