“Magnolia” is an eclectic film that combines a multitude of disparate tales and images to tell a cohesive story about family.

The film opens with a lengthy and humorous description of highly improbably coincidence.

A young boy jumping from the roof of his building in a suicide attempt is actually shot by his own mother as he falls past their apartment window.

Though the boy was trying to kill himself to get away from his arguing parents, he is actually killed by them and listed as an accomplice in his own death since he was the one who loaded the normally empty shotgun.

The film tells another story about a scuba diver found dead in a tree. His body was plucked accidentally from a lake by a firefighter he had a fist fight with the night before.

The sheer implausibility of what happened sends the fireman into a tailspin of self-destructive depression and he takes his own life.

These stories are meant to set the stage for nine tales of family relationships and love that follow.

They show how timing, chance and the co-mingling of fates can rule us, destroy us or bring us to the place we needed to be the most.

Extremely unlikely events which can only occur at the behest of a multitude of unlikely events are known as Fortean events.

Described by Charles Fort in his many books on the paranormal and phenomenology, they can range from the merely unlikely to virtually impossible, from deja vu to raining blood and fish.

“Magnolia” is more than it first appears. It seems, at first glance, to be nothing more than nine tales told simultaneously, but once the pieces fall together, they form a whole that makes one of the most beautiful films of the year.

The film stars Jason Robards as Earl Partridge, a television producer dying of cancer. He is taken care of by his young wife Linda, played by Julianne Moore, who married him for his money, but now realizes that after all her affairs and deceit that she is actually in love with him.

Earl’s estranged son Frank Mackey is played by Tom Cruise. Frank is a misogynist self-help guru who touts “respect the cock” at his “Seduce and Destroy” seminar. He took care of his dying mother while Earl was nowhere to be found.

Earl’s nurse, Phil (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is charged with the task of finding Frank.

Jimmy Gator (Philip Baker Hall) is a game show host who finds out that he is dying. He attempts a reconciliation with his estranged, cocaine-addicted daughter Claudia (Melora Walters) who meets and dates the lonely, upstanding police officer, Jim Kurring (Jim C. Reilly).

One of Jimmy’s current game show contestants is brilliant, young Stanley (Jeremy Blackman) whose father is living off of his game show winnings.

And William H. Macy plays grown up quiz show kid, Donnie Smith, whose lonely, loveless existence and poverty lead him down a desperate path in search of cash, for love-inspired oral surgery.

The story is complex but reasonably easy to follow from tale to tale in spite of the films gargantuan running time of three hours and eight minutes. The only thing that could have benefited the film’s storyline would have been a tighter cut in the editing room. It is just way too long to see without an intermission.

In spite of this, “Magnolia” is as entertaining to watch as it is to think about afterwards.

The acting cannot be surpassed. Tom Cruise performs particularly well as the unappealing Frank Mackey.

It is an act of unparalleled bravery on the part of a superstar like Cruise to play a character who we are not meant to sympathize with for much of his screen time. He is a repulsive yet compelling figure to watch as he struts across the stage giving men advice on how to turn their female friends into “sperm receptacles.”

When we learn his reasons for being so, it makes him all the more sympathetic as we watch his incredibly painful reunion with his abusive father. Cruise has stopped mugging like a cinematic boy toy and mastered the art of complex emoting.

Every performance on screen is worth watching closely, but go to the bathroom before you sit down because this is a long, worthwhile ride.

4 Stars