Written & Directed by Elijah Bynum
Magazine Dreams is a fascinating film for reasons not necessarily directly related the film itself, unfortunately. Jonathan Majors is a massively talented actor with the ability to be one of the best in the business. His career was just blossoming when this Sundance hit showed up at the festival in early 2023. He broke through in The Last Black Man in San Francisco, and then landed the big bad role in the new Marvel Cinematic Universe phase, and the counterpart to Michael B. Jordan in Creed III. His career was soaring. But then domestic violence allegations and eventually convictions followed. He lost his deal with Marvel, and Magazine Dreams, the indie festival hit, was not picked up and distributed until now. And even now, Majors is not back in good favor with Hollywood, and his character in this film adds nothing good to that narrative, but that is not a comment on the overall quality of the film or the performance.
Majors plays an aspiring bodybuilder named Killian Maddox, who faces struggles in life thanks to his early circumstances that found his parents killed in a car accident. He now lives with his grandfather and works at the local grocery story, where he has eyes for the pretty checkout girl (Haley Bennett). While making progress with his therapist (Harriet Sansom Harris), Killian continues to obsess over his potential as a bodybuilder, taking steroid usage to the limits, ultimately affecting his mood and mental state. He begins to unravel as he continues to have outbursts, inching ever closer to a full mental break as he obsesses over his bodybuilding hero (Mike O’Hearn), and clashes with the hardware store painters he believes cheated his veteran grandfather.
I’ll address the controversy first and then leave it behind. The behavioral issues of the character Killian Maddox, and ultimate physicality of the performance are clearly problematic given the circumstances of real-life Jonathan Majors choking his then girlfriend. It’s a bad look, and it’s hard to watch this and not directly think of that. It’d be a different story if the movie and Majors’ character lived in a completely different realm, but given they don’t it’s hard to ignore, which is too bad because the movie is actually pretty and good, and Majors once again proves that he’s an incredibly talented and nuanced performer. His turn as Killian, while problematic, is very strong. The physical transformation is obviously notable and impressive, but he treats Killian with levels of subtlety and brashness, a hard balance to strike. He is big when it makes sense and very, very small when it’s absolutely necessary.
I hope Majors has grown as a person and we’re able to forgive his horrendous actions at some point because he is a major talent. It might be hard to get there though, as we have with many other notable names in Hollywood history like Roman Polanski. It’s not just Majors’ performance that fuels the film though, as writer/director Elijah Bynum has crafted a really fascinating character study filled with thought provoking themes. The journey of Killian Maddox takes us from loving and sympathizing with him, to hating and despising him, and all the way back. Circumstances and how society treats a person goes a long way in forming who we are as people. It can never excuse the ultimate outcome of a person’s life, but it helps to explain how someone might have gotten there.
A story like Killian Maddox’s is not an easy needle to thread, but Elijah Bynum shows a great deal of vision, care and sympathy when unraveling his story, complimented from a truly great performance by Jonathan Majors. Unfortunately, Magazine Dreams will never not be associated with the Jonathan Majors controversy, and that is a shame on a number of levels. It is a good movie with a strong central performance that will forever be discussed in a frame outside of simply the art itself. It’s unavoidable and frankly a part of the story that shouldn’t be left out. But it is a shame since the movie is as successful as it is otherwise.
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