2023 Sundance Film Festival Movie Review: Magazine Dreams

If there was a way to invest in the careers of an actor, like buying stock in a company in hopes of future gains, I would take all the money I have and invest it in the career of Jonathan Majors. From the first time I saw him in 2019’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco to last year’s war-epic Devotion, Majors has been a star on the rise, consistently giving great performances while picking the right projects. 

2023 is going to be a great year of Jonathan Majors. He has two high-profile films this year, as Kang in Ant-Man: Quantumania, the new big-bad in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and in Creed III, starring as the new nemesis in the Michael B. Jordan-led film. 

But before those come out, Majors stars in Magazine Dreams, director Elijah Bynum’s sophomore effort that made its debut at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, and it is the best performance of Majors’ career thus far and is going to be one that I will be thinking about all of 2023.

Majors plays Killian, an amateur bodybuilder with dreams of making it professionally. When not working out and trying to achieve the perfect body, he works part-time at a grocery store and must attend court-mandated therapy sessions. Killian struggles with personal connection. He can’t read social cues and has a difficult time controlling his temper, which makes him snap in violent, aggressive ways. But the one thing that keeps him centered is his bodybuilding, something he is so obsessed with that he will push himself to his absolute limits even if doctors warn him about the damage he is doing to his body.

Magazine Dreams is a film as big as Majors’ biceps. It runs long and tackles a lot of themes like toxic masculinity, mental illness, the pursuit of being the best, and finding a reason to live when all seems lost. It’s a tough journey watching Killian and his pursuit to become a professional bodybuilder. Every time he takes a step forward and thinks he is getting ahead or making strides, he takes three steps back. He continuously takes hits and he still gets back up and continues to fight. But how much can one man take and what happens when he is pushed to his absolute limit? The last half of the film is a startling portrait of a man losing his will to care about anything and his will to live. 

Majors is Magazine Dreams. The movie rests on his ripped, muscular shoulders and he carries it for the whole runtime. Magazine Dreams is a showcase of Majors’ talents. His sweetness, his charm, the boiling anger under the skin, the intimidation, and the explosive blow-ups. Majors’ performance is simply masterful. A multi-faceted performance with a full range of emotions and a physicality that is unmatched by anyone in Hollywood. Despite Killian’s flaws, and there are many of them, Majors always makes us feel for him. When he’s triumphant, like when he gets a date with a fellow grocery store employee (Haley Bennett) we cheer for him. But when the date goes awry, we feel crushed for him. Majors brings us into the mind and body of Killian, in a performance that I suspect will be one of the best I will see all year.

Even when Magazine Dreams hits a bump, and it does a few times, Majors’s performance is so good you don’t even mind. This is outstanding work from one of the most exciting actors working today in one of the best movies from the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.

Magazine Dreams premiered in the U.S. Dramatic competition at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival.