Tom Cruisehas spent the better part of the last 20 age making square , wide appealing action picture . He ’s become known just as much for the demise - defying stunts he ’s uncoerced to do in moving picture likeMission : inconceivable — Dead ReckoningandTop Gun : Maverickas he is for his signature tune , cap - M Movie Star personal appeal . Action films have , of course , been an crucial part of Cruise ’s career ever since it begin in the 1980s , but there was a time when Hollywood ’s most perpetrate movie whiz seemed more unforced to agitate himself emotionally and tonally as a performer than he is now .
That period of his filmography reached its high tip when Cruise give the greatest public presentation of his career to date in writer - directorPaul Thomas Anderson‘s gutsy L.A. epicMagnolia . Released the same year that Cruise gave another , wildly unlike performance inStanley Kubrick‘sEyes Wide Shut , Magnoliafeatures the Hollywood star as one figure in an ensemble shape of fictional character whose subject all issue forth spilling messily and violently to the surface over the course of one showery , inexplicable day in the San Fernando Valley . The motion-picture show persist one of the more divisive masterpieces of the 1990s , but not only hasMagnolia‘s reputation continued to improve in the 25 years since it was released , but Cruise ’s performance also stands now as a stunning reminder of the full largeness of his natural endowment .
The person you are versus the person you pretend to be
An ensemble epic made in the same vein as Robert Altman classics likeNashvilleandShort Cuts , Magnoliafollows well over a 12 reference as their lives become unexpectedly linked together over the course of one 24 - hour period by , among other things , a long - running quiz show , a dying Hollywood manufacturer ( Jason Robards ) , and a freak weather result that really needs to be seen to be believed . At the center of its batch of interconnect story is Cruise ’s Frank T.J. Mackey , a chauvinistic pickup artist and male motivational speaker whose advice for dating women is so absurdly misogynistic that it might have been easy to dissolve him now as an excessively cartoonish fibre had it not been for the upgrade of certain online hands ’s rights activists in late years .
Over the course ofMagnolia‘s first two hour , Frank gives a pair of motivational speeches to a conference room full of faceless homo and participates in a television receiver interview with a distaff diary keeper ( April Grace ) . In his first demonstration , Frank is collected , charismatic , and unhinged in a way that perfectly suit his brand . He ’s so outlandishly confident , in fact , that he ’s first introduced by Anderson in a across-the-board pellet that frame in him stand ominously in a limelight before the words “ score and demolish ” appear on a streamer behind him . Anderson ’s knowing , comedic edge append a stack to this conniption , but not as much as Cruise ’s trademark , full - throated commitment to his role . He plays Frank without a hint of irony , which just makes the character ’s accomplished arc inMagnoliaall the more satisfying to see .
A complete dismantling
In his interview , Frank is taken aback by the level of enquiry into his life that his interviewer has done . She ask him to verbalize about his relationship with his mother and his Padre , and then she proceeds to systematically nose hole in his lies . She tells him that she knows his female parent actually died when he was still a unseasoned boy , that he aim precaution of her before she did , and that he was then occupy in by a female neighbour . This Book of Revelation shocks Frank and now puts him on a back foot in a development that Cruise beautifully play with a sudden freeze of his motion and a slowing of his previously hyped - up glance around the room . Frank shuts down , resorting to muteness and , as he says in one ofMagnolia‘s most memorable moment , “ silent judgment ” until his allotted time for the interview runs out .
Frank whip out at his interviewer and leave the way in a hush — panic-stricken and angry that his past tense , which he escort as a exposure and contradiction in terms to the man he betray himself as now , has been expose . When he render to the group discussion elbow room from earlier to finish his presentation , Frank breaks down . Frazzled , he attempt to move onwards , but ends up walking in circles , offer no existent “ wisdom , ” but just opt for discussion and set phrase that he know will get a rise out of those listening . When he incorrectly tells his audience members to open their drear Quran rather than their blanched Book , he instinctively screams “ fing bullst ” and flips a table . He has begun , like every other type inMagnolia , to untangle . This process reaches its culmination in a tardy tantrum when Frank begrudgingly visits his dying father , Robards ’ Earl , whom he still resents for abandoning him and his mother when he was just a kid .
Magnoliais abouta lotof matter : rue , trauma , loneliness , the relationships between parents and their children . One of its key theme , though , is about the disparity between who we are , who we want to be , and who we dissemble to be . Frank desperately wants to be untouchable — someone so uncaring of cleaning lady and unintimidated by other men that even the end of his mother and the desertion of his father do n’t irritate him . But he ’s just as vulnerable as anyone else , a fact that ’s bring out not only in his disaster of an interview , but also in his years - in - the - making confrontation with his don . This scene , take and performed almost altogether in one unbroken take , begins with Frank sitting down at his father ’s bedside and hurtle insults at the old man — reminding him of the regardless harshness and harshness he exposed Frank to at a young age .
As Frank recounts how his dying mother “ waited ” for Earl to call and tally on her , his emotions start to drown him . Again , he examine not to let his pain bubble to the surface , vowing even as tears start to spill from his eyes , “ I am not locomote to cry for you … I require you to know I hate your f**ing guts . ” His strand of furious words is broken up by his unmanageable SOB , which give way to the material hurt that has been tormenting him his integral sprightliness , when Cruise suddenly involve with a split - choked voice , “ Why did n’t you call ? ” It ’s an emotional dislocation so powerful that it actually moved Cruise ’s other co - star , a nearby Philip Seymour Hoffman , to tear on exercise set .
Magnoliais overflowing with unforgettable performances and cinematic mo . In Cruise ’s Frank T.J. Mackey , though , the flick finds its most powerful vessel for its ideas about pain , hurt , and catharsis . Frank break down and evolve more than any other character inMagnolia — beginning it a brash , loudmouthed woman hater and terminate it a quiet , brokenhearted man solely concerned in comforting a woman he barely make love . Cruise , for his part , sell the slow decay of his character ’s carefully crafted façade with so much confidence and unchecked vulnerability that it ’s almost dire to find . The film was made at a time when it feel like he was hell - bended on get the Oscar he still has n’t won . Twenty - five yr afterward , it ’s a powerful reminder that — even as he hold on tightly to his most recognisable franchises — Cruise is still one of the most gifted and various motion-picture show stars of his multiplication .
Magnoliais streaming now for free onPluto TV .
