Magnolia is a 1999 drama about a group of interrelated characters in search of love, forgiveness, and meaning in the San Fernando Valley.
Magnolia is a great movie. It really is, despite its controversially odd ending and unabashed attempts at Oscar-baiting, mostly because that ending is still so dang fresh and yeah, quite a few of the actors absolutely deserved nominations. In truth, only Tom Cruise actually got a nom, but you ask any fan of the movie and they’ll probably tell you that Philip Seymour Hoffman should have got one. Or William H. Macy. Or Julianne Moore. Or John C. Reilly for crying out loud. He is so good in this movie.
But let’s talk about a guy who gets sort of overshadowed by the huge cast of overachievers, doing what is arguably the best work of his entire, very lengthy, career. Philip Baker Hall is an old school actor, almost largely cast in television, getting his start back in the early 70s before soon getting one episode walk-ons on hits like MAS*H and Emergency! and The Waltons, sticking with TV for decades with only occasionally finding small roles in film. Many will no doubt remember his two-part appearance as Lt. Bookman the Library Cop on Seinfeld, one of the funniest non-recurring characters on the show. You’re laughing right now. I’m sure.
But then in the mid-90s, the actor started showing up in big movies. He turned a lot of heads in Hard Eight (1996), directed by future Magnolia director Paul Thomas Anderson, pairing with him again a year later in Boogie Nights (1997). He was in the Jim Carrey drama The Truman Show. Appeared in the Harrison Ford action flick Air Force One (1997) and had bit parts in Rush Hour (1998) and Enemy of the State (1998). He was getting seen and people were asking, “Hey. Who is that guy?” I know I was. I knew after his great but very small spin in John Cusack‘s Say Anything… (1989) as an IRS agent that he was one to watch. You should watch that movie, too by the way.
Enter Magnolia. In the film he plays Jimmy Gator, the long time host of the children’s game show What Do Kids Know? It’s a sweet gig that has earned him a lot of fans and wealth, but he of course, has a dark side, which is the life blood of the movie. He’s cheated on his wife, has a drinking problem, has an estranged daughter with a cocaine habit, and the real kicker, he’s dying of cancer. Not a happy story is what I’m saying. However, what Hall does with all this is really something to see. He’s subtle, never bombastic, and let’s our knowledge of these sticky corners of his life tweak our emotions without him pulling on strings to do so. There’s a moment on stage at his show where it all sort of consumes him and as he tries to introduce a piece of music for the next question to the kid contestants, spirals into a self-collapsing moment of internalized hope that quickly pulls the legs out from under him. It’s a small moment but watch how committed it is and how Baker effortlessly slips into the character’s own shadows. Chilling.
Disappointing fathers is part of the package of Magnolia, with the great Jason Robards playing the failure in Cruise’s eyes, and while that tributary of the movie is deeply moving, with Cruise doing things probably no one expected of him, I still find the story of Jimmy Gator more engaging, mostly because Hall is tremendously convincing, soaking up everything he can out of his limited moments on camera. He’s so vulnerable and in a latter scene is simply heartbreaking just for the way he sits in a chair. If there was ever a man physically deflated on film before, this is it. He steals this movie without anyone ever knowing it.
In a movie overflowing in great performances, it’s easy to lose sight of what Hall does. His story, by design, isn’t given as much weight as most of the others, and given that there’s a whole lot to keep track of in the intertwining plots, it’s a little hard not to be excused for missing some of the finer details. When you have Tom Cruise shouting at the screen about penises and vaginas, well, you’re bound to be distracted. Either way, given the chance, watch Magnolia again and keep your sharp cinema eyes focused on Philip Baker Hall and swoon at the magic he does with Jimmy Gator.