By Tim Estiloz
The film “Magazine Dreams” should have been a true life dream come true for its then-rising star Jonathan Majors, fresh off his success as boxer Damian “Diamond Dame” Anderson in 2023’s “Creed III” and about to be significant player in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as “Kang The Conquerer”. “Magazine Dreams” generated great buzz when it debuted on the festival circuit that year and it was picked up by Searchlight Pictures who outbid several other major Hollywood studios for the prized distribution rights. By all accounts, the film could have been a major contender during that year’s awards season leading up to the Oscars.
But, just like his self-destructive fictional boxer in “Creed III”, Majors’ own real-life dealt a seeming knockout blow to his professional life and acting career. In December 2023, Majors was found guilty of third-degree reckless assault and harassment of his ex-girlfriend Grace Jabbari. A jury found him NOT guilty of aggravated harassment and intentional assault. The actor still maintains his innocence against the charges.
Nevertheless, the professional damage was done and Marvel dropped Majors as the planned linchpin character Kang for their next series of films and Searchlight Pictures plans to distribute the film were shelved. The distribution rights were returned to the filmmakers. Only recently has new independent group, Briarcliff Entertainment revived “Magazine Dreams” for distribution; courtroom controversies aside, giving audiences a chance to see from a critical standpoint this fascinating film.
“Magazine Dreams” is a riveting, often ugly and uncomfortable profile of one man’s obsession to be remembered by society as seen through the world of professional bodybuilding. Majors plays Killian Maddox, a socially isolated man acting as caregiver for his for his aged live-in Vietnam war veteran grandfather he calls “Pa Pa” (wonderfully played by Harrison Page). Killian is obsessed with becoming a champion bodybuilder. He spends hours lifting weights each day; his bedroom walls covered with photos and magazine articles featuring the top competitors in the sport in a variety of muscle rippling poses.
His obsession for bodybuilding is a need to be seen as a person of accomplishment and fame. With no other skills at his disposal, Killian believes him becoming a champion bodybuilder is the supreme pinnacle to be remembered. The supreme accomplishment for Killian’s limited psyche is to be featured on the cover on a popular bodybuilder magazine. His obsessive goal to be admired, as he himself admires those bodybuilders plastered in photos all over his walls, is a means for him to achieve a degree of immortality.
Killian spends his free time sending letters and eventually making phone calls to his bodybuilding idol, a top competitor named Brad Vanderhorn (Mike O’ Hearn). He pours out his heart to Vanderhorn in these communications about his training, his determination to succeed, seeking advice and eventually including increasingly mundane details about his equally mundane personal life.
However, this long distance adulation and confidence sharing goes unrequited as Killian never receives a reply from the idol that he’s placed on his imaginary pedestal. This non-responsiveness causes increasing frustration for Killian. Over the course of the film, Killian tries to politely tell Vanderhorn about how it upsets him to not get a reply, eventually reproaching his idol for a lack of manners.
It’s one of many actions by Killian that reveals he may have some degree of mental deficit, perhaps autism. Most certainly we see Killian has issues with anger management over the course of the film; based certainly on childhood trauma witnessing the death of his parents, as well as real and perceived slights leveled upon him by society, individuals in his life and just bad circumstance.
At one early point in the film, Killian is on the phone with a local paint shop that did some work in the home he shares with his grandfather. “Pa Pa” says the painters did a poor job painting his room. When Killian calls to politely request they come to do the job right and is rebuffed, we witness Killian counting to ten to quell his increasing anger on the phone call. When the shop owner hangs up on him, Killian angrily drives to the store to face them in person. However, when he arrives, he discovers the store has closed.
In an out of control fit of rage, Killian violently smashes the storefront windows, tossing paint cans and turning over displays, slashing his arms and hands bloody from the broken glass before driving away in extreme self-inflicted pain. The scene is a harbinger of similar events to come.
Killian also works bagging groceries at a nearby supermarket where he has admiring eyes for his fellow co-worker, a shy but pretty cashier named Jessie (a marvelously understated performance by Haley Bennett). It’s here where we also see Killian, despite his simmering anger issues, is also painfully awkward and shy communicating with people. Even when he tries to record a You Tube video by himself in his garage talking about the sport he loves; he stumbles and flubs his words repeatedly over the course of several hours for a three-minute video, before giving up in frustration.
Despite this verbal and emotional handicap, Killian summons the courage to awkwardly, even apologetically, ask Jessie out to dinner; as if he knows in advance she will never accept his invitation. However, days later to his surprise, Jesse calls to accept his invitation sharing she delayed saying yes because, like him, she too is shy but she also finds a certain charm in his awkward behavior.
All seems incredibly promising at the start of the dinner date with a few tentative laughs and mutual sharing of their lives. However, Killian’s lack of social skills prompts him to abruptly overshare in graphic detail how his parents were brutally murdered before his eyes, shocking Jessie and throwing an irretrievable damper on the evening.
Killian only makes matters worse when Jesse reveals she doesn’t know who Brad Vanderhorn is. Killian is astonished at her lack of recognition of his idol and shames her for what he perceives as ignorance of a “top celebrity”. Jessie’s initial genuine interest in becoming friends, or perhaps more, with Killian cools almost immediately. When Killian, with a bodybuilder’s appetite, orders enough individual full servings of food to feed six people – for himself to eat; Jesse has had enough and excuses herself to go to the ladies room. In reality, it’s a chance to dump Killian at the restaurant; and he once again sits isolated, lonely and rejected.
This rejection is amplified when Vanderhorn finally replies to Killian; offering a chance to meet with him when he comes to town. Killian’s excitement is crushed when the meeting turns disturbingly exploitative, proving the old adage “Never meet your heroes because you’ll probably be disappointed”.
More and more disappointments continue to hit Killian culminating in his big competition day that he’s been training for. Only for that day to be destroyed by unexpected payback for his own destruction of that paint store display window earlier in the film. This event sends Killian on a devastating path of even deeper self-destruction for most likely himself and those around him.
Majors is a revelation in his role as Killian Maddox. Not only does he physically transform himself into a legitimate looking professional bodybuilder via months of grueling training and lifting weights; but also, by effectively conveying the skills to elicit combination of empathy for his isolation and awkward attempts to connect socially, and fear from Killian’s wildly erratic moods and outbursts of anger and rage. We feel his sadness at wanting to be noticed, appreciated and even loved.
However, we fear the powder keg of anger and resentment simmering inside of him. We want him to succeed even at this most banal of goals. Yet, we also experience the same trepidation as those around him as his anger explodes in ever increasing frequency and degrees.
Is Killian’s rage a result of his childhood trauma, or his innate genetic personality or a by-product of the steroids he injects to help achieve his massive muscles? The film gives no specific answers along the way. We can only helplessly witness how his anger and resentment seems hell-bent on self-loathing and perhaps deadly self-destruction.
Only Hollywood knows, and also perhaps Jonathan Majors himself to some degree, whether he can rebuild his acting career after his recent personal and legal travails and transgressions. Oddly enough, the film’s delayed release technically puts his performance in a position to be considered for awards consideration later this year.
Whatever is next in Jonathan Majors’ career, if anything; his work in “Magazine Dreams” shows that, as an actor, he has a unique gift and this film superbly puts that gifted skill on fully magnificent display.
For that reason alone, “Magazine Dreams” is a film that you should definitely seek out.