In a film that jumps from story to story as abruptly as this one does, the actors are what matter, and the vignettes with the strongest actors are the most absorbing. John C. Reilly is outstanding as a lonely cop, and Melora Walters as his love interest is also great. My other favorite story line was that of a young boy (Jeremy Blackman), champion on a trivia game show, whose father gives show-biz parents a bad name. William H. Macy can always be relied on to provide a melancholy schlub, and he's got a couple of great scenes in a bar with a snooty Henry Gibson, who played the Nazi leader in The Blues Brothers (and whose character, we find out in the credits, is named Thurston Howell). Even Tom Cruise gives a good performance, in that he made his misogynist character so believably loathsome that for a good part of the movie, all I could think about was what a soul-satisfying pleasure it would be to kick him in the teeth... and then in some other areas.
But Jason Robards as a dying man and Julianne Moore as his wife are unbearable. This movie needed to be a lot shorter, and cutting all of their scenes would have helped in more ways than one. I really like Moore, but she's terrible here, all screechy hysterics and swearing. And Robards is just dull and banal. I mean, how tired and trite is the dying man who regrets the nasty things he's done in his life? Why can't we ever see some old bastard cackle, "You can't get back at me now, you morons! Screw you!"
And then there's just some dumb moves on Anderson's part, like having all the characters sing along to some mopey estrogen-soaked song, making the soundtrack so loud that for the first half of the movie you can barely hear what anyone is saying, cutting away from scenes at the height of dramatic tension... and making the movie three hours long. The first part of the movie is very jumpy and disconnected, though it settles into a rhythm after a while, and the end of the film gets melodramatic, but the middle part is terrific.
The movie's theme is loneliness and isolation, and some scenes are heart-achingly sad. It's really a pretty depressing film, but it's (mostly) quite good and worth seeing. Now if only Paul Thomas Anderson could hire a better editor...
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