When does an obsession become a mental disorder? When exactly does one cross that threshold? Most of us have hobbies. My biggest hobby currently has lasted 15 years and spanned over 3,000 published reviews. Is that a mental disorder? I suppose it could be. Hard to say. But reviewing films hasn’t yet spurred me to violent action or personal health priority dismissal. Those could be warning signs.
Killian Maddox (Jonathan Majors) is obsessed with being remembered, with having a legacy. He has Magazine Dreams. Towards this end, he has transformed into a monster of sorts. He is a professional bodybuilder with a fantastically limited set of social skills. Is he on the spectrum? Seems likely. The steroids and the narcissistic behavior are not helping him bridge that gap. A counselor is, but she’s fighting an uphill battle.
Here’s a question: how old should you be when you stop decorating your walls with centerfold posters? In this case, Killian’s decorations are not of hot women in their underwear, but instead of overdeveloped men in their underwear. In my mind, it’s all the same thing. Within this scene, there are unrealistic aspirations and arrested development. Killian is especially obsessed with sculpted legend Brad Vanderhorn (Michael O’Hearn). Killian writes to him every day.
So how obsessed is obsessed? Arbitrarily angry enough to destroy a store?
Willing to ruin a first date with a personal credo? Oh, I got one – how about getting beaten up with a lead pipe, being in desperate need of a hospital, and using your remaining energy instead to enter a “Mr. Universe” contest (before passing out on stage)? Gee, and I thought beauty pageant moms go too far.
Past the superhuman portrayal of vanity, insecurity, aggression, and loneliness all in one, Magazine Dreams isn’t really much of a film. It paints a wonderful character (and by “wonderful,” I mean “horrible”), but doesn’t seem to know what to do with him. The best part of this film is completely plot-irrelevant, which is good, as the plot of this film kinda blows. The film excels at displaying how much Jonathan Majors has captured this dangerous parody of human being. I dunno what exactly the film was going for, but I guarantee this was a Grand A acting transformation (both in physical and mental capacities). No wonder I’ve been seeing a lot of Majors in the past two years. Is this performance alone enough by itself to make us forget why Majors was blackballed from Hollywood? Maybe. Hard to say. I’m not a fan of Majors, the person, but as of this moment, it’s very difficult not to be fan of Majors the actor.
There was once an intense body builder
With an obsession bordered on “bewilder”
His life, so it seems
Is haunted by Dreams
GF? By now, he’d have killed her
Rated R, 124 Minutes
Director: Elijah Bynum
Writer: Elijah Bynum
Genre: Get a load of this guy
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Fans of acting!
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Actual bodybuilders, I’m guessing
