Berlin International Film Festival 2000

Magnolia by Paul Thomas Anderson

After tackling the porn industry in Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson embarks on his most ambitious venture yet, the 188-minute Magnolia. It's a sprawling, character-driven epic which might best be described as a tale of unhappy families.

Jason Robards plays Earl Partridge, a wealthy Croesus-like figure, now on the verge of death. (The role had an added resonance for the actor, who had just recovered from a near-fatal illness himself.) Julianne Moore is his much younger wife, a nervous, frightened woman, hooked on prescription drugs, who can't come to terms with the idea that the man she married for his money might die.

Earl Partridge has one last wish to be reunited with his estranged son, Frank (Tom Cruise), a strutting, arrogant self-help guru who teaches other men "how to seduce and destroy". According to Anderson, Cruise "jumped at the chance" to tackle a 'Bad Boy Wonder' character like Frank. "It was really amazing that he would take this leap of faith, because this was a very risky role."

Anderson originally wanted to write something "small and intimate" which he could shoot in 30 days or so. Somehow, in the process of writing, the project began to mushroom. "I still think that Magnolia is small and intimate," says the young writer-director, "it just took 200 pages and 90 days to get the right amount of small and intimate."