It's been 5 years since the release of Paul Thomas Anderson's auspicious, dazzlingly epic follow-up to Boogie Nights and it's clearer than ever that it marked the arrival of a great, if not the great, modern director, whose films challenge us on an emotional and intellectual level, both in their narratives and the unique way they comment on the form of cinema.  Magnolia opens with a series of carefully constructed lies presented as truth.  They are of course urban legends used to give credence to the idea that chance and coincidence is a part every day life, but the fact that Anderson offers these up as true is more important to consider than the themes within them.  What this opening sequence gives us is a warning that our (and the characters) expectations will be challenged as will the distinction between filmic reality and the one we live in.  The setup is that we accept what is true only when it suits us and the rest of the time, create explanations, theories, and outright lies to comfort and protect us from the randomness and chaos that life throws at us.

Set in Los Angeles, a city equated with falseness and smoke screens, it's not surprising to find the characters clinging to ideas such as coincidence, religion, tightly regimented schedules or refusing to acknowledge the past as a vital piece of who they are as long as it helps them get to the end of the day.  In the first hour, Anderson introduces us to the cast by interweaving the many stories and giving us the outlandish connections between all of them.  Several people I've talked to become so caught up in recognizing these connections, that the larger purpose escapes them.  It's easy to get caught up in the labyrinthine structure of the film, as the first time through, it's difficult just to follow the various storyline's and seemingly endless web of connections, let alone see the gears Anderson has in place to make this mammoth thing move.  Late in the film as the narrative begins to unravel, the attempts to remind us we're only watching a film appear more frequently - the self-referential dialogue with Phillip Seymour Hoffman, the wonderfully clever "sing-along" to Aimee Mann's Wise Up, etc. - and force us to see that the links and coincidences used to form a non-existent order in the world and unreal expectations that we place on life are simply bullshit.  They are the things of movies, but when we expect the world to conform to the conveniently packaged, strictly ordered nature of films or the realities we ourselves create, they will eventually shatter as the cruelty and harshness of life catches up to us.  That Anderson examines this through a number of fascinating, emotionally devastating stories makes it all the more impressive.

The common saying from the film, "You may be through with the past, but the past isn't through with you", is often noted as the major theme, but it is only an example of how many of these characters use denial as a way of avoiding their troubles.  Anderson creates characters who are set in their ways, comfortable with the way things are, and unwilling to come to terms with the direction their lives have taken.  They are within their safety zones until he begins to complicate their situations with drugs, cancer, accidents and other real "things that happen" that cannot be explained away because they are inherently unfair.  They cannot be categorized, ordered, or explained by any theories nor expected by the characters limited paradigms that think everything will stay on track if they ignore the truth.  Problems are not magically resolved like Hollywood makes you believe they are.

The extent of everyone's ignorance is summed up in Hoffman's phone conversation where he states, "Now, this is the part of the movie where you help me."  Anderson's character's not only begin acting as if they are in a movie (unknowingly, aside from the sing-along sequence and the to-the-camera smile immediately preceding the final fade to black), but use the themes that Anderson explores throughout the film to justify the state of their lives.  The second half is as much a dialogue between PTA and his audience as the sprawling, whirlwind of fate, chance, coincidence that it has become famous for.  The absurdity of the ending - something that is often mentioned as its largest detriment and often accompanied by words like pretentious, bizarre, or pointless - reflects the absurdity of the character's expectations as well as our naivety in accepting the bogus explanations given to us throughout the film and expecting (and desiring) that everything turn out right in the end.  The feverish pace of the final hour, where everyone is confronted with something that shakes their preconceived notions of the world they live in, is unsustainable resulting in the final narrative explosion, the rain of frogs.  This ending, which contains the same amount of chance and coincidence as ten of the urban legends that begin the film, is Anderson's final wake-up call to the viewer.  If you think categorizing and explaining all of life's twists and turns will save you or that you can hide from life in a cocoon of your own creation, you might as well be waiting for a rain of frogs.  The character's in Magnolia get their miracle happy ending, but it's made abundantly clear that we cannot expect the same.  As depressing as this revelation may seem, Anderson meets this despair with a warm heart.  While much in this film is purposefully insincere, the loyalty, love, hope, and humanity is real.  Although we must accept life as it is rather than as we feel it should be, if we greet it with compassion and understanding, we might just it make it through and sometimes, just maybe, get that happy ending.