“Magazine Dreams” has had quite the journey to make it to the big screen. After its release at Sundance Film Festival in 2023, the film was met with high regards, with the following month being picked up by Searchlight Pictures. However, later that year, the rights were returned to filmmakers after controversy surrounding Majors.
In December 2023, Majors was found guilty of assaulting and harassing his former girlfriend, Grace Jabbari, leading to Searchlight and its parent company, Walt Disney Studios, to pull the film. After watching the film, it is extremely clear why.
Killian Maddox only wants one thing: to be the best bodybuilder the world has ever seen. Maddox, played by Jonathan Majors, is a shy introvert who seems like whenever he’s not working at his supermarket job and aiding his grandfather, he is working out and stuffing his face to an unhealthy fanatical degree in the name of a “perfect body.” In “Magazine Dreams” the audience is taken along for the ride as his life starts to spiral.
Maddox’s character is introverted, incel adjacent and prone to violence due to emotional instability. At the beginning of the film, his therapist recounts a moment in the hospital where he threatened to “break open a nurse’s skull and drink it like soup.”
One is immediately reminded of Majors’ past actions due to this opening line. This association is amplified further by the film’s violent aroma and, for better or for worse, Majors’ stellar performance.
“Magazine Dreams” thematically draws from “Taxi Driver,” and Majors’ spiteful, loser display is very similar to Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle, in a similar yet novel fashion.
Maddox truly believes that being the world’s best bodybuilder is the only way to build a legacy for himself, to be remembered and thus liked. An incredibly socially inept individual, on a first date, is stood up after explaining how his father killed his mother, then himself, after projecting his grand plans on becoming famous. It’s uncomfortably painful while oddly sympathetic.
Maddox’s binge eating and steroid usage throughout the film adds a tense and tight feeling, like a pit in your stomach about to explode, representative of his own muscular physique. It leaves you at the edge of your seat waiting for him to break.
While at times the film feels like a study of building actions to an eventual reaction with its reccurring blackouts seemingly showing that the turning point is near, it also can feel like unadulterated trauma porn.
Maddox is beaten up, found to have a tumor after crashing his car, targeted online, sexually taken advantage of and is constantly shown bruised, bloody and nauseously eating monstrous portions of food. This is all while he is trying his best to control his emotions and take care of his grandfather. One can’t help but feel for him, but after a while, it takes a toll on the viewer after being pummeled with Maddox’s self imposed bad luck.
Director Elijah Bynum was able to capture the wishful illusion of Maddox’s bodybuilding stardom with a commiserating touch and intense visual style. While Majors’ actions outside of the film were indefensible, his quiet macho performance is nothing less than impeccable. Though it can somewhat take you out at the beginning, it’s ultimately what makes the movie so effective in its pained caricature. Yet his constant traumas fester, like his tumors, leading to an anticlimactic ending with less and more to be desired.
