Magazine Dreams, 2023.
Written and directed by Elijah Bynum.
Starring Jonathan Majors, Haley Bennett, Taylour Paige, Mike O’Hearn, Harrison Page, and Harriet Sansom Harris.
SYNOPSIS:
A Black amateur bodybuilder struggles to find human connection in this exploration of celebrity and violence.
Elijah Bynum (Hot Summer Nights) turns in an assured sophomore feature; a hugely depressing but utterly transfixing drama which ambitiously mines a slew of thematics – toxic masculinity, body dysmorphia, racism, mental illness, and family trauma. The unwieldy, somewhat over-egged canvas is unsurprisingly held firm, however, by a brilliant Jonathan Majors.
Killian Maddox (Majors) is an aspiring bodybuilder whose entire existence is centered around sculpting his body for upcoming competitions, all while obsessively pursuing a meeting with his industry hero, Brad Vanderhorn (Michael O’Hearn). Killian is however deeply troubled, forced to attend court-mandated therapy to address his possibly trauma-informed bouts of violent rage, all while struggling to hold down a job at a grocery store. But Killian’s tireless quest for stardom, even immortality, soon begins to lead him down a dark road.
Magazine Dreams is destined to be endlessly compared to many similarly-themed films – namely The Wrestler, Whiplash, and at least two peak-era Scorsese movies – but ultimately carves its own unique enough path by zeroing in on the specificity of Killian’s fraught life.
First and foremost, Bynum’s film is a warts-and-all portrait of the bodybuilding subculture; the soul-crushing nature of body maintenance and dehumanising meat market that is competitions, where judges place a forensic focus on cosmetic flawlessness. Killian spends his days loading his body up with 6,000 calories of protein and obsessing over his appearance in the mirror, amid the belief that his body simply isn’t “good enough” – whatever that actually means.
Genetics ultimately place a ceiling on how far any human body can be pushed, a reality that Killian is extremely uneager to accept, no matter that steroids are causing him dangerously high blood pressure and benign tumours to form on his liver. Combine all this with his own childhood family trauma, a clear lack of social skills, an inability to process his anger in a healthy way, and a lack of emotional support systems beyond his infirm grandfather (Harrison Page), and Killian becomes a powder keg simply waiting to explode.
It’s a crowded smorgasbord of ideas for any single film to cover, but especially in the early going Bynum manages to organically demonstrate the confluence of circumstances which have brought Killian close to breaking point. It’s quickly made clear that Killian is flirting with a direct path to self-destruction, and even when something hopeful happens – such as a cute cashier (Haley Bennett) agreeing to go on a date with him – we’re conditioned to anticipate disaster. The results, regularly, are excruciating, and in one especially startling sequence show that even the biggest man isn’t above being abused.
If Killian’s single-minded commitment to being remembered – even Googling, “How do you make people remember you?” at one point – is profoundly sad, the film would be remiss if it didn’t address his existence in a modern America as a large, Black man. In an establishing scene, Killian speaks with sadness about the lack of quality food available in his low-income neighbourhood, and is forced to endure fearful stares from white women when shopping for groceries, as well as the tragic inevitability of the police flagging him down while jogging at night. And though Killian is absolutely an imposing individual when he gets angry, how many times can any Black person be told to stop raising their voice before their “rage” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy?
While audiences will likely be divided on some of the pic’s second-half happenings, there’s little arguing with Majors’ towering performance. Touting a jaw-droppingly ripped physique – one he’ll be handily recycling in Creed III later this year – Majors is never less than 100% persuasive in this part, but even more important than his Adonis-like figure, he convinces as a man with large ambitions and no outlet to conceive of any other reality but achieving them. Killian isn’t the easiest character to like, but Majors ensures he’s empathetic in spite of his many problems because it’s so easy to see how the hand he was dealt led him to this place.
This is absolutely the Majors show, though there are a few worthwhile supporting roles that also beg a mention; the ever-great Harriet Sansom Harris shines in a few brief scenes as Killian’s therapist, and Haley Bennett brings a low-key warmth to Jessie, Killian’s aforementioned co-worker and love interest.
Bynum acquits himself well as director throughout, sustaining an intense clip over more than two hours, while DP Adam Arkapaw takes full advantage of Majors’ granite-carved physicality at almost every possible turn. But at 123 minutes, Magazine Dreams does eventually begin to feel a touch overstuffed; by the mid-way point it already seems to be building to a foregone conclusion, only to circle around a few times before getting there. Some of the bolder, more potentially triggering subplots introduced later on are also sure to prove divisive, ahead of a slightly flat ending, but Majors is so damn magnetic that he keeps the center held together despite the editorial excess.
A bleak yet compellingly wrought character piece, Magazine Dreams may ultimately strain under the weight of its lofty themes, but Jonathan Majors’ volcanic performance brings searing humanity to a troubling, tricky character.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
