Anderson has captured one of our most excruciatingly vexing ironies on the screen. We often incorporate and turn out to be like that which we most dislike in our progenitors. Despite our best intentions and efforts to the contrary, we inherit monkey see, monkey do, even if monkey hates what monkey sees.

The magic of this film is that it takes extreme situations and through humor, parallel development, bizarre, even quirky biblical allusions, makes this painful subject matter so engaging and involving that we were held spellbound for nearly three hours.

A lot of racket has been made about the parallels between this film and Boogie Nights, an earlier film by P.T. Anderson, which was the story of a porn production company and its hugely endowed male star. Both film stories take place in the San Fernando Valley, suburb of Los Angels, the home of the Valley Girl. They both use bizarre twists. They are both ensemble pieces. But the similarity ends there. It is quite possible to have liked one and not the other. Magnolia is an undoubtedly superior film; it is a mature, complete development of a complex theme. Boogie Nights is at best a comic book parody, fun, perhaps, but lacking depth.

Usually, when many stories are fractured or diffused as in Magnolia, the dramatic power is sacrificed, and we have at best an intellectually challenging game to unravel. Craig has no patience for chess, puzzles, or inscrutability for "arts" sake. Anna-Maria is generally less unforgiving of complexity. Even so, both of us were engrossed in this film because it masterfully interwove its theme into every moment, every character, and every sequence. Though hardly a Biblical movie, this kind of story telling is at the core of most religious literature where a theme is illustrated in the lives of different characters in different situations and clarified by repetition. In movies, this can become confusing, boring, or both. Not in Magnolia.

In the mystery of fulfilling our hearts, finding and giving love to those who are close to us through parenthood or marriage, we often, if not always, fall upon our shortcomings, sins if you will, as though they were swords programmed to slice us up. The trick is not to deny our shortcomings nor to dwell on them, but to recognize them, to look at their horrendous power as the source from which stemmed the fracturing events of our upbringing and the imperfections of our foreparents. In so doing, we can hope to find some level of redemption and the freedom to move forward. Although we may face a time when raging against our parents is appropriate, we must ultimately find the place for reconciliation, if not forgiveness.

To make sure we get the message that life is a game of sorts, Magnolia ties all of the characters and situations through a game show in which genius kids compete against adults. The creator of the show, Earl Partridge (Jason Robards), languishes at home in the final stages of ravagingly painful cancer. His trophy wife, Linda Partridge (Juliana Moore), married Earl for his money but came to fall in love with him and is wracked with guilt over her infidelities. Earl is estranged from his son, Frank Mackey (Tom Cruise), because he abandoned his wife when she was dying of cancer thus forcing Frank to take care of her. Frank has created a fantasy childhood and distorted his trauma into a caricature of hostile male dominance. He leads a nationwide support group in which he rallies the guys to deceive and dominate in order to get and humiliate "pussy". In a series of clever moves, warm hearted hospice worker Phil Parma (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), tracks down and reunites Frank with his father.

In other subplots, the host of the game show, Jimmy Gator (Phillip Baker Hall), carries the news of his incurable cancer to a daughter, Claudia Gator (Melora Walters) whose coked up rage cuts through him like a knife. We never see her able to cope with any situation without her nose full of drugs making her as high and skittish as a kite in a wind squall. When we learn of the reason for her need for chemical oblivion, we understand, even empathize. Her drug habit is never romanticized or made attractive, but we do see its roots.

The current wiz kid on the game show, Stanley (Jeremy Blackman), throws the contest as he is about to set a new 30 year record because he is tired of having his genius manipulated as a freak show, especially by his hyper-competitive father. The past champion, now a pathetic aging loser who has been robbed of his winnings by his parents, is played with charm, pathos, and moments of hilarity by William H. Macey. His antics to get teeth braces so he can identify with and win the love of a hunk bartender made us sigh with a wincing shudder at the lengths we go to gain love and acceptance.

Meandering through the many subplots is an LAPD cop, Jim Kurring (John C. Reilly). He manages to be a walking parody of cop sensitivity training 101, in part because he has a good heart. He earnestly tries to do his job well, and yet he is a bumbler and a blubberer who hasn’t had a real date in three years. He and the cokehead Claudia fall for each other. In some remarkably clever and at the same time painful sequences, they promise to tell each other what is really happening and then proceed to hold back.

We can’t help giving you more than our usually small dose of plot summary because the heart and soul of the film is in the ensemble talents brought together so brilliantly. For instance, Tom Cruise breaks out completely. His emotional deluge of rage and weeping as he curses and then cuddles his dying father, who is the source of his misogyny and manipulation, promises whole new possibilities for Cruise’s maturing talents. Though his ripped body is still enough to draw sighs of admiration and pure physical lust, we are both pleased that he delivered a performance that shows his talents and depths in ways that were missed in Eyes Wide Shut.

Our single misgiving goes to the motivation that drove Linda Partridge to near suicide. She experiences extreme guilt because she has married Earl for money and then has cheated on him. Now that she is in love with him, and he is on the brink of painful death, she is coming unglued. In the other instances, the guilt that drives characters to their near breaking points comes from parent-child relationships. With Linda Partridge, guilt is born in a late life marriage by two individuals who have selfishly used people and life. It is hard to imagine that Earl didn’t suspect, even knowingly accept, that his younger bride was into him for the power, prestige, and money. The resolution of this relationship seems forced and melodramatic because its backdrop is undeveloped and seems so improbable. Even so, Julianne Moore did a marvelous job expressing and convincing us of the frantic, at times hostile, disjointed state of her being.