Magazine Dreams, 2023.
Written and Directed by Elijah Bynum.
Starring Jonathan Majors, Taylour Paige, Haley Bennett, Bradley Stryker, Mike O’Hearn, Harrison Page, Dan Donohue, Sonny Valicenti, Mark Rhino Smith, Tim Martin Gleason, Justin Cuomo, Tess Cline, and Harriet Sansom Harris.
SYNOPSIS:
A Black amateur bodybuilder struggles to find human connection in this exploration of celebrity and violence.
Note: This review was written out of Sundance 2023 and does not reflect or consider anything that has come to light about Jonathan Majors. However, accounting for those allegations gives the film an additional, intensely unsettling layer to his performance.
Jonathan Majors is shredded as amateur bodybuilder Killian Maddox for Magazine Dreams. Fittingly, writer/director Elijah Bynum begins with this image: a Greek God of a man that presumably has everything he could ever desire or the means to attain it easily. To our eyes, he is a perfect human specimen. In reality, Killian is insecure over his deltoids, which a judge has repeatedly told him are too small. More concerning, whatever trials and tribulations this lifestyle have put him through have turned him into an explosively violent person who has to count down from ten when heated to regain control of his emotions and a cool head. Otherwise, he spouts something horrifying like, “I will smash your skull and drink soup out of it” to the well-meaning nurses because he is also traumatized by years of body shaming from judges and doesn’t like to be touched. All of this is boiled over to a point where it’s questionable whether he is still fit to care for his grandfather (Harrison Page).
There is this myth that good looks are a cheat code for success. In some cases, they are, but Magazine Dreams is a reminder that all the deadlifting, abs, sketchy injections, and world-class fitness doesn’t make up for a socially maladjusted personality. And Killian is a deeply odd paradox of a person. A fascinating dichotomy exists in watching someone with this chiseled physique trip over his words and embarrass himself while trying to ask his cashier co-worker (Haley Bennett) out on a date. The bodybuilding tutorials he uploads to social media don’t fare any better, typically yielding sadly unsurprising deranged comments telling him to kill himself.
That’s not even the worst of it. Killian also writes creepy letters to his idol Brad Vanderhorn, a professional bodybuilder on the cover of respected magazines. Anyone who has heard the song Stan by Eminem will instantly recoil as soon as the voiceover for one of these letters kicks in (some of his lines feel like they are ripped right from the lyrics.) That’s if they haven’t already curled into a ball from Jonathan Majors’ pinpoint, scarily accurate cringe performance. When he finally does get the date with the girl, who suggests Thursday evening, he awkwardly and excitedly blurts out, “I love Thursdays! SmackDown used the air on Thursdays!” while launching into inexplicable babble about WWE like such a dope that one can’t help hoping The Undertaker shows up and gives the guy a Tombstone Piledriver to spare him the impending disaster this will be and the second-hand misery from watching it play out. To the surprise of no one, the date is an unmitigated trainwreck.
Killian is what modern society would refer to as an incel, and Jonathan Majors knows how to manifest that into dark comedy. Simultaneously, this character is scarily mentally unwell and needs help, obsessed with his bodybuilding ambitions. When one of his violent encounters lands him in a hospital, he refuses surgery because he can’t have a scar to continue chasing his dream. The problem is that nobody likes Killian; he manages to scare his co-worker away during dinner, makes people uncomfortable, is prone to rage, and his social awkwardness makes him a punching bag for internet bullying. This is a top-tier character study.
And then something happens in the second half to cause a shift in Killian from repeatedly failing at earning approval and respect to realizing that there’s an alternative: using his physique and rage to demand and take respect from those that have brought him down mentally and have used him physically. What brings about this transition is a brilliant choice that shouldn’t be spoiled but creates yet another fascinating dynamic. Magazine Dreams becomes hauntingly intoxicating as the beast inside Killian can no longer be constrained. And while there are elements of the plot that could have been streamlined and a few bits that could have been trimmed, it’s still a swirling, harrowing character study (accentuated by a disorienting score from Jason Hill) about the psychological damages from bodybuilding, social ineptitude, and taking respect through intimidation after all else fails.
The darker Magazine Dreams gets, the harder it becomes to look away, although the first half is more tightly constructed. At one point, while getting back at someone who wronged him, Killian, in a line delivery that echoes Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver staring into his reflection and uttering, “Are you talking to me?” shouts, “Who’s on the mountaintop now?” Jonathan Majors is on the mountaintop. Very few actors are as dedicated to their craft as he is.
Edit: Well, he was on the mountaintop and then got cancelled. Time will tell if he will be forgiven and can return.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
