After the sprawling, multi-character, Biblical - climax that was 1999's Magnolia, Anderson
returned with a much more focused story, about an isolated and fitfully angry (though
decent)
man named Barry Egan, who is in love with a kind woman, has run afoul of some unscrupulous phone - sex operators, and is working on a scam to exploit a marketing loophole that will
get him frequent - flyer miles for pudding cups.