Depending on who acquires the distribution rights for writer/director Elijah Bynum’s Magazine Dreams, this time next year, Jonathan Majors should be a major contender if not the front runner for Best Actor in the big awards. That is the kind of caliber performance that he turns in, at times vulnerable, at times scary, but always compelling.
Now there’s a conversation to be had about performers that undergo dramatic physical changes for roles and are lauded. How it can perpetuate the kinds of body image issues explored in the narrative to audience members who believe they can attain the same kinds of results the actor did to get ready for the role in the same time frame, not taking into account the additional support the performer has to achieve those results (trainers, nutritionist, etc.). The tides may be changing on this practice, but they haven’t yet. As long as people are still doing it, and being awarded for doing it, it would be unrealistic to expect Jonathan Majors to forgo what others have done before to best body this role. And body it he does. In a film that is all about the body and the presentation of the body, the bodybuilder’s body.
When I was in high school, I went to a specialized gym that was split into two parts. The basement, where I went, was for boxing, and the upstairs was for bodybuilders. Bodybuilders who, like Jonathan Majors’ Killian, competed. There was even a women’s champion up there. It was a sweaty intimidating place to walk through on my way to the basement, and they all looked like Killian working out. Not very much clothes, lots of muscle on display, and lots of muscle shakes. If there was steroid use, I never saw any injections, but just as Killian hid his use in the bathroom, so might they have (yes, this film does show injections, you are forewarned).
Killian is very human and complex. He has the confidence to put himself out there on the stage to be judged on his physical appearance, and the work he’s put into it. But in his daily life, he covers up, struggles to connect, and gets nervous. He hyper-fixates. Bodybuilding is something he knows, and even with that, his desire for perfection can make him nervous (see: his video). So when on his date with Jessie (played by Haley Bennett), after revealing something personal about his past and worrying he might have made everything uncomfortable, he gets hyper-focused on how she doesn’t know about a bodybuilder and completely derails it. You could see it going downhill long before it reaches its end, but it perfectly set it up for a moment of him doing what a lot of people do when they are upset, eat food they normally wouldn’t, and in a very visual way that made you feel for the character.
Early in the film, during one of Killian’s counseling sessions, he brings up that his neighbourhood is 6 miles from the closest grocer, meaning people that live there have to go that far for healthy food or rely on heavily processed food from gas stations or fast food. This is only mentioned once, but it is one of the rich layers giving context to the world of Killian and the way he moves through it.
This is not an easy film to watch at times. Killian isn’t an easy character, and his obsession takes him to dark places and darker fantasies. But it is very hard to take your eyes off this performance. Anyone who watched Lovecraft County will be unsurprised by the range Jonathon Majors brings to his performance in Magazine Dreams, but those unfamiliar will feel like they are being introduced to a new star (then go back and check out his work in Lovecraft Country and The Last Black Man in San Francisco).
Magazine Dreams premiered at Sundance in the US Dramatic Competition section.
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