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"There's enough mist in here to save 10 masturbators!"

If the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gave out a special Oscar for the year's most ambitious movie, 1999 would be no contest. The hands-down winner in that category is Paul Thomas Anderson's epic-length cornucopia of scintillating characters mystifyingly entitled Magnolia, a film as intelligent and complex as it is extravagant. Anderson, whose 1997 critical darling Boogie Nights I didn't like, pulls off perfectly an extremely risky project. If it is emotional cinema you seek then this, my friends, is for you.

Magnolia is the story of a boy genius (Jeremy Blackman), a game show host (Philip Baker Hall) and the game show's has-been boy wonder (William H. Macy). It is the story of a dying man (Jason Robards), his conflicted wife (Julianne Moore) and his son, who's a cocky sex guru (Tom Cruise). It is the story of a policeman (John C. Reilly) who falls in love with the game show host's daughter (Melora Walters). And, the movie's superb trailer promises, "this will all make sense in the end."

After three hours and fifteen minutes, it does make sense. And it's a masterpiece. Anderson doesn't juggle all these characters as much as he weaves them together to make a tapestry of compelling emotion. The movie tackles a plethora of themes, from redirected anger to lost love to the role of fate, chance and coincidence in our lives. Impressively, the humanity of the characters doesn't get lost in the messages and vice versa. It's no small feat to make a movie with nearly a dozen major players and not have to sacrifice something.

Actually, Magnolia begins with a narration by Ricky Jay on coincidences. That remains a theme throughout the movie. Through a series of chance occurences, this eccentric bunch of characters learn more about themselves through the course of one day than they would otherwise have learned in their lifetime. It's a heart-breaking but ultimately life-affirming thing to watch and surprisingly, pretty darn entertaining in its own right.

The movie is being attacked by some for being overblown and pretentious. But let's leave those to the likes of Terrence Malick and agree that Magnolia is none of the above. It is the real deal, as genuinely profound a movie as you're going to get this year. It has everything -- deathbed confessions, emotional breakdowns, strange coincidences -- and brings it all together in a series of climaxes that doesn't deliver a single message but speaks to the audience about a lot of things, killing a lot of birds with a lot of stones. Did I mention it was an ambitious movie?

The only part that doesn't really work is William H. Macy's former Quiz Kid Donnie Smith, who doesn't seem to fit in anywhere. He's the weak link in an otherwise uncommonly strong chain of characters. Tom Cruise's sex guru is particularly wrenching, a man who, over the years, has developed an enormous amount of anger towards his father and redirected it all towards women in general. The studio is banking on Cruise, admittedly impressive, to receive an Oscar nomination, but I'm pulling for the overlooked John C. Reilly, whose performance as the troubled policeman is subtly poignant, a masterpiece of restraint and calculation.

I'm fairly sure that this isn't making a lot of sense to you. That's to be expected. It is beyond my talents as a writer to adequately paraphrase the plot of Magnolia without revealing crucial details and surprise scenes. This review must be peculiar. It's definitely vague. The problem is that this movie is above words. It's above buzz, too, which probably means it won't draw a huge audience. With this review, then, I'm running an advertising campaign of my own, trying to spark your interest in this wonderful movie without ruining the experience for you. I don't do this often. I hope it works.