What we call "coincidences" are limited to the ones we happen to notice. If you could stand back far enough, in fact, everything would be revealed as a coincidence. Jay's voice appears again at the end, to remind us that coincidences and strange events do happen, and they are as real as everything else. This is narrated by magician and spellbinder Ricky Jay, whose book Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women can be seen open before the studious little Stanley. It begins deceptively, with a little documentary about amazing coincidences (including the scuba diver scooped by a fire-fighting plane and dumped on a forest fire). He sees that we all have our reasons.Īs an act of filmmaking, it draws us in and doesn't let go. The astonishing thing about this film, written and directed by Anderson when he was only 28 (and had made " Boogie Nights" two years earlier and " Hard Eight" three) is that it is so wise and sympathetic. I have given enough to suggest the way the sins of the parents are visited on the children, how so many people lead lives of desperation, how a few try to help. The old man mumbles in pain to his nurse that he truly loved his first wife and hates himself for cheating on her.īut a plot description could take up all my space, and more. His second wife ( Julianne Moore), who married him for money, now finds she loves him and regrets that she cheated on him. Now his father is dying of the same disease, attended by Phil the nurse ( Philip Seymour Hoffman). When he was a child, his father abandoned the boy and his mother, and Frank had to nurse her through death by cancer.
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His long-estranged son is the motivational huckster Frank Mackey ( Tom Cruise), who fills hotel conference rooms with lectures on how to conquer women. The show is produced by "Big Earl" Partridge ( Jason Robards). And later the same cop observes Quiz Kid Donnie Smith trying to scale a pole to break into the furniture store, hears his confession, forgives him, helps him make restitution. Reilly) who appears at her door doesn't notice her nervous tics and asks her out on a date, which ends by them both confessing deep shame. He hasn't seen Claudia ( Melora Walters), his daughter from his second marriage, for 10 years. The show's emcee is Jimmy Gator ( Philip Baker Hall), who has learned he has two months to live. But on one crucial segment, he refuses to perform because, refused a trip to the toilet, he has wet his pants and refuses to stand up.
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The other smart kid, still about 9 or 10, is Stanley Spector ( Jeremy Blackman), star genius on the TV show "What Do Kids Know?" He has all the answers. He has an outburst about his childhood, but his most touching moment is when he cries out that he knows he has love, he knows he can love, he knows he is worth loving. Now he works in a furniture store, is a drunk, desperately needs money to get braces on his teeth in the forlorn hope that they will attract the bartender he has a crush on - who also wears braces. He was briefly famous as a child on a TV show and still expects people to remember him. One is now an adult, still calling himself "Quiz Kid Donnie Smith" ( William H. There are many major characters, but in the film's 180-minute running time, there is time to develop them all and obtain performances that seem to center on moments of deep self-revelation. This is closely linked to a loathing or fear of behaving as we are told, or think, that we should. The central theme is cruelty to children, and its lasting effect.