Mag­no­lia at 20 – In praise of PTA’s cathar­tic masterpiece

“We might be through with the past, but the past ain’t through with us.” That’s the thing about the past. It sticks to us. It scars. And the deep­er you try to bury it, the more it rears its ugly head.

Scat­tered across the San Fer­nan­do Val­ley, an eclec­tic cast of char­ac­ters are unit­ed by their frac­tured rela­tion­ship with the past. Over the course of its three-hour run­time, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Mag­no­lia deft­ly threads the themes of denial and repres­sion through its seem­ing­ly dis­parate sto­ry­lines, expos­ing the endur­ing hurt of unre­solved trauma.

We meet Clau­dia Wil­son Gator (Melo­ra Wal­ters), a frag­ile and skit­tish young woman, whose his­to­ry of child­hood abuse man­i­fests itself in drug depen­den­cy. Across town, pro­fes­sion­al pick-up artist Frank TJ Mack­ey (Tom Cruise) takes to the stage at a seduc­tion sem­i­nar, adopt­ing an arro­gant and ego­is­tic per­sona to dis­tance him­self from the pain of being aban­doned by his father. For­mer child prodi­gy Don­nie Smith (William H Macy) fix­ates on the idea of get­ting braces, rather than dwelling on his wast­ed poten­tial and unhap­py life. And writhing in agony on his deathbed, TV pro­duc­er Earl Par­tridge (Jason Robards) is con­sumed by regret.

Denial isn’t a healthy way to deal with trau­ma, but it can be a com­fort­able one. Con­fronting painful mem­o­ries can seem like too much to bear, at times. It’s eas­i­er just to push those feel­ings aside. Watch­ing Mag­no­lia for the first time, I saw my own avoidant ten­den­cies reflect­ed back to me. But here, there was no judge­ment; only sym­pa­thy. And as the film climbed towards its emo­tion­al crescen­do, it took me by the hand and led me to where I need­ed to be. I would learn, much like the mosa­ic of char­ac­ters on screen, that the only way out is through.

“It’s not going to stop ​’til you wise up.”

It starts sud­den­ly, yet slow­ly, with a crash on a car roof. Before long, it turns into a del­uge – but not of rain­wa­ter. Of frogs.

This Bib­li­cal down­pour couldn’t be more per­fect­ly timed. As denial gives way to self-accep­tance, the heav­ens open and frogs fall from the sky. Frank TJ Mack­ey sobs at his estranged father’s bed­side, curs­ing him for his self­ish­ness while beg­ging him not to give in to death. Clau­dia, at long last, has found some­one with whom she can be vul­ner­a­ble, some­one who promis­es to lis­ten with­out judge­ment and to cre­ate a safe space to talk about what she has suf­fered. All across the city, walls that took years to build up sud­den­ly come tum­bling down. Accep­tance is raw, messy and emo­tion­al­ly exhaus­tive, but it’s the cru­cial first step towards healing.

“Life ain’t short, it’s long… it’s long, god­damn it,” a close-to-death Earl des­per­ate­ly laments to his bed­side nurse. As fate would have it, our char­ac­ters come to this same real­i­sa­tion pre­cise­ly as the rain of frogs begins. Life is long. It’s far too long to live bur­dened by the past. The anger. The sad­ness. The pain. At some point, you just have to let it flow through you like rain.

“When the sun­shine don’t work, the good Lord bring the rain in.”

Tears fall and the rain pours. Epic in scope and rich in sym­bol­ism, the famous down­pour of frogs is any­thing but sub­tle. But Mag­no­lia isn’t try­ing to be. At times laps­ing into showi­ness and melo­dra­ma, the film nev­er shies away from emo­tion­al abun­dance. Over­com­ing long-sup­pressed trau­ma can feel tri­umphant and rev­e­la­to­ry, and Magnolia’s cli­mac­tic, cathar­tic rain­fall is an unapolo­getic cel­e­bra­tion of this new-found liberation.

Cleans­ing and trans­for­ma­tive, the rain wash­es over us. Mag­no­lia rewards repeat view­ings, and on return­ing to this film, I feel as unbur­dened as the onscreen char­ac­ters each time that the frogs begin to fall from the sky. When Frank sobs, I sob. And when Clau­dia final­ly smiles, I smile. Much dis­cussed and often derid­ed, for me, the film’s del­uge remains the most pure­ly cathar­tic moment in cin­e­ma his­to­ry. It’s a reminder of the peace that comes with accep­tance. It reas­sures that you are more than just the pain of your past.

One day, a great rain will come. And when it clears, there’ll be noth­ing but dizzy­ing, rap­tur­ous freedom.