Magazine Dreams (2025) Review!!

Synopsis – An amateur bodybuilder struggles to find human connection in this exploration of celebrity and violence.

My Take – Stylized as Taxi Driver (1976) and surrounding the often overlooked effort behind body building, this sophomore effort from writer-director Elijah Bynum (Hot Summer Nights) has had a tough time reaching the screens (any screen at a point).

Mainly as its star, Jonathan Majors, who soon after gathering immense awards worthy hype during its 2023 Sundance run, found himself accused of domestic violence and ultimately found guilty of one count of reckless assault against his former partner Grace Jabbari, with reports offering other allegations of abusive behavior.

Deemed too radioactive, the film was dumped by its original distributor, Searchlight Pictures, only to be then picked up by Briarcliff Entertainment.

Though the choice to seek out or avoid someone’s work based on their history is a personal one, this one specifically took me into a place that made me very uncomfortable. Specifically as this provocative piece challenges the audience to empathize with a flawed and complex character with a history of violence.

Structured as a heartbreaking silhouette of what happens when it seems like the whole world is against you, and not knowing how to relate to people, the film is filled with angry tension, and works as character study of a man dealing with suppressed violence and a desire for connection and fame.

Keeping this in mind it’s also hard not to talk about the kind of transformative, all-in incredible performance Jonathan Majors brings here. His performance is so powerful that it pulls you in and makes you really feel what his character is going through. Some particular scenes hit hard emotionally specifically because of how committed he is.

Yet, in the end, this is a film that is not for everyone, but might be worth a stream for someone looking for something different and artistic.

The story follows Killian Maddox (Jonathan Majors), an aspiring bodybuilder who dreams of appearing in magazines and becoming famous like his idol Brad Vanderhorn (Mike O’Hearn). However, he is stuck working a low-paid job, living with and caring for his ailing grandfather (Harrison Page), enduring micro and macro forms of aggression as a Black man in America.

Hence, his pursuit of perfection comes at a high cost, as he suffers from physical, mental and emotional damage caused by his extreme diet, training and steroid use. He also faces obstacles such as poverty, racism and loneliness, as well as a traumatic past that haunts him.

Here, the narrative elements will reminded one of Nightcrawler (2014) or Whiplash (2014) as we dive into the bleak and unflinching portrait of a man driven by obsession and insecurity. The film does not glamorize or romanticize Killian’s journey, but rather exposes the harsh realities and consequences of his choices.

Killian’s anger at the world around him is only trumped by his thirst to win, to perfect the deltoids that a judge once criticized by calling it small, to expand the legs that squats just aren’t expanding and to impress his bodybuilding idol and perhaps one day grace the same magazine covers.

Sadly, he remains his own worst enemy, in need of the help he isn’t ready to accept, as he is unable to break free of the shackles of extreme masculinity that have pushed him into toxic cliché. The movie dives into some really heavy and complex themes, and when it works, it really works.

Though director Bynum manage to trace over beats like an uncomfortable dinner date, a public freak out and the purchase of a firearm, by using welcome restraint when things threaten to crash into overload, but frustratingly everything remains over familiar. Add to that the last act gets messy as it tries to cover too much at once, especially when it comes to unpacking such a complicated character.

In the sense, after Maddox is pushed to his physical and emotional limits, the question of how explosively he might respond looms large in the foreground, but are never answered. Where the film gets it right is in capturing the ugliness of the bodybuilding world, where the narrative should spend most of its time.

A human body isn’t meant to bulge so excessively that its musculature looks like a nest of reptiles wrapped in knots. It’s good for Killian that he comes up short against his competitors. He’s big and bulky, but he looks fit rather than freakish.

And of course, Jonathan Majors does a great job by undergoing a stunning physical transformation. He also manages to make Killian feel painfully real, underpinning his anger with a softness and vulnerability that makes his lurches into mania that much harder for us to stomach.

In smaller roles, Haley Bennett as Jessie, a grocery store worker who becomes Killian’s love interest; Taylour Paige as Pink Coat, a prostitute who offers Killian some comfort; Harrison Page as William Lattimore, Killian’s grandfather who tries to guide him; and Harriet Sansom Harris as Killian’s counselor who tries to help him, add what they can to the film. On the whole, ‘Magazine Dreams‘ is a dark, uncomfortable and disturbing bodybuilder drama anchored by an excellent Jonathan Majors.