The film begins with a list of three unrelated things that make you think things can be so coincidental that chance overwhelms necessity all of a sudden. This foreshadows that the story that follows seems to be the same. Magnolia's story is multi-line, like this year's Crash and Altman's Short Cuts, and this structure is its most compelling point. The stories of many people are intertwined, like a slice from the whole society, and this slice allows you to see the whole face of this society. As the characters become hysterical as the story progresses, questions begin to emerge: father and son, life and death, past and present... When these questions become unresolvable, redemption emerges. It rained frogs in the world, accidentally interrupting the original orbit of the earth, and things began to move forward for the better.
In addition to the excellent performances of the various characters, the title and Frog Rain are two of my favorites, they redeemed Anderson's extremely bad impression in my heart, and the three-hour Magnolia proved his talent.
A little thought about this film, if it weren't for the emergence of the frog rain described in the Bible, how would the story develop? Letting surreal solve real problems always feels like a tricky escape. Or, what if instead of a frog it descends a dinosaur?
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