Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is an incredible, mind-blowing work of art that is also one of the best films of the year. The film dives even deeper into the concept of the multi-verse(s), and its spectacularly animated sequences reach dizzying new heights in this sequel to 2018's Into the Spider-Verse, which won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film.
The story continues with Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) as he continues to figure out his life as New York's newest Spidey. Zipping through cityscapes with the greatest of ease, his biggest struggle is balancing his teenage life: honoring his commitments to his mother (Luna Lauren Vélez) and soon-to-be-police chief father (Brian Tyree Henry), looking ahead to college and oh yeah, trying to save the world–all while keeping his identity a secret from those he loves.
The only ones who know Miles' true identity are the league of Spider-Men who helped teach him the ropes (webs?) after crash-landing into his universe in the previous film. All of the Spider-Men, including punky introvert Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld), are spread across different worlds.
The film opens with Gwen's origin story shown over an incredible drum-solo montage that also illustrates each world's specific visual style (Gwen's is a watercolor one, while Miles' ink-blotted world more readily resembles comics). After Gwen is attacked in her world by the universe-hopping villain Vulture (Jorma Taccone), she also unexpectedly meets a few more Spider-Men and women (Oscar Isaac as Spider-Man 2099 and Issa Rae). These heroes are part of a "Spider-Society" that protects the multi-verses from "canon disruptions." Wishing to leave her world behind, she pleads to join theirs. Against better judgment, she decides to pop over to Miles' world for a quick visit.
While Miles has matured since the first film, although still wise-cracking and perhaps a bit too cocky in his Spidey role, he underestimates the arrival of a clumsy new villain, Spot (Jason Schwartzman). Spot warns Miles that he is his new nemesis and holds him responsible for his genetic mutation; being covered in spots that he can use to travel through space (a result of the first film's universe collider).
A surprise visit from Gwen excites Miles, and the two web-sling around the city in friendly flirtatious fun. But when he sneakily follows her and her Spidey task force into a new universe (we travel to many in the film; buckle up) and disrupts a key moment in that world, he learns of an unintended truth that the Spider-Men share: some events, while tragic, are fated to happen and keep all of the universes connected and in order. Miles learns that he can't save everyone, a truth he struggles to accept and ultimately, doesn't.
Written by Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Dave Callaham, Across the Spider-Verse takes Miles' story into even larger worlds and consequences. Directors Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson's film explodes with dizzyingly brilliant animation that constantly feels like you're trying to hang on to a mechanical bull. With a runtime of 2 hours and 20 minutes, this is the longest American animated film to date. Across the Spider-Verse also claims to have the largest crew of any animated movie ever, with around 1,000 people working on it. It has 240 characters and takes place in six universes.
And yet, while it's the most wow-worthy and spectacular thing I've seen this year so far, it fails to capture the same heart as its predecessor Into the Spider-Verse did. Likely, there is too much going on. The first film was more self-contained, in that all of the action crash-landed into Miles's world. By the time we've jumped into our sixth universe, you do feel a sense of endless abandon that makes it difficult to remain emotionally connected to the looming threat lurking back in Miles's world.
Beyond the astounding animation, the vocal performances remain perfect and excellently cast. Shameik Moore returns as Miles, expressing the same boyish gusto with a bit more frustration and angst to color his world. Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen is given even more spotlight to express her story, which is the most heartfelt part of the film. Newcomers Oscar Isaac and Issa Rae are wonderful inclusions here too. Isaac specifically lends a bottled rage that turns troubling when we learn that his Spider-Man isn't exactly in Miles' corner.
Further shouts go to Daniel Kaluuya as Spider-Punk and Karan Soni as Indian Spider-Man Pavitr Prabhakar. And beyond all of the web-slingers, Miles's loving parents played by Brian Tyree Henry and Luna Lauren Vélez give the world a grounded, heartfelt center for Miles's story.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is an incredible work of art that bursts with fun and visual wonder that proves the sequel game can remain strong (Beyond the Spider-Verse will return in March 2024).
2h 20 minutes. Rated PG for sequences of animated action violence, some language, and thematic elements.
https://youtu.be/shW9i6k8cB0
Beau Is Afraid
Film director Michelangelo Antonioni once said, "A film that can be described in words is not really a film." Since it's nearly impossible to describe the new dark comedy Beau Is Afraid (now playing in theaters nationwide), I suppose that makes this a film with a capital "F."
Beau Is Afraid is the story of one helplessly fear-stricken man's stress-inducing, anxiety-ridden, paranoia-packed odyssey to see his late mother amidst the threats of a harrowing world. Written and directed by Ari Aster, the film is equal parts absurd and visually astounding, and by its end will leave audiences speechless and confounded as to what they just experienced.
Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) is a sensitive, inept sadsack who lives in a comically uninhabitable version of New York's inner-city, constantly evading a world of psychos who threaten his everyday life. As Beau's misfortune would have it, on the day he is to visit his doting mother (who he admits smothered him since he was a child during a therapy session in the film's opening scene), he loses his keys, leaving him helpless to break the news that he is to stay home. When he receives the news of her unexpected demise just one day later, against all of his fears, he sets forth to journey to her through a world of dangers that lie in front of him.
Beau Is Afraid is a big bundle of childhood anxieties and unprocessed emotions wrapped up in a 2-hour and 59-minute runtime. It's also a fascinating journey through many imaginative and distinct worlds, including a deliriously deranged low-rent apartment building where he lives; a suburban home with suspiciously kind parents (Amy Ryan and Nathan Lane); a forest-turned-full-on animated parable; and then a nightmare-ending that is the film's most head-spinning part.
Audiences are likely familiar with writer-director Ari Aster's previous films, Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019), which were both equally polarizing and shocking for their depictions of horror and traumas around the devastating losses of family. Beau Is Afraid is a painfully punishing movie that stuffs guilt, trauma, and physical injury upon its lead character, and Joaquin Phoenix is up to the challenge. Pushing his bloated body to the brink through physical and psychological torture, Phoenix is nothing short of amazing here. He's joined by comic performances from Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan, as well as Stephen McKinley Henderson as Beau's therapist. In its last, and most WTF section, Parker Posey and Patti LuPone show up to push the film over its edge of sanity.
Beau Is Afraid is a work of incredible artistry (indie distributor A24 should get a special mention for producing a movie that is so defiantly unique, challenging, and original–much like how they did with last year's Everything Everywhere All At Once). It's been fun to talk about Beau Is Afraid, and its word-of-mouth seems to continue to grow, making for conversations around this deranged psychoanalytic dive into unprocessed childhood trauma that Freud would have a field day dissecting.
If you're looking for a dose of easily watchable popcorn entertainment, this film is not for you. Whether you end up loving or hating it, don't be afraid to check it out for yourself.
2h 59m. Rated R for strong violent content, sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use, and language.
https://youtu.be/PuiWDn976Ek
Paint
If you're going to have someone play a Bob Ross-type character in a movie, there's no one better to do it than Owen Wilson. It's this casting alone that made me want to watch Paint, in which Wilson stars as a not uncoincidentally-imagined fictional basic cable painter known for his serene landscape portraits.
However, Wilson's gimmick of channeling Ross's famous hippie vibes with his trademark chill is only rewarding for so long. While it's an intentionally silly sendup and a mildly funny world to live in, Paint isn't nearly as subversive or funny enough to become a new comedy classic.
Wilson plays "Carl Nargle," a hippie host of a live painting program for the local Burlington PBS affiliate TV station. With his good vibes and worldly bits of wisdom, Carl is beloved in his small town. The ladies especially love him, too. They rush him after every show merely for the chance to hold his paintbrushes.
Times are good for ol' Carl Nargle. Except–predictably–the times are about to change. Once the station's ratings start to go south, the station manager (Stephen Root) brings in a new painter. Ambrosia (Ciara Renée), a new hip young gal, is to add to Carl's success with another hour of live painting.
Carl and the rest of the station are surprised at the new blood that Ambrosia brings to the show. Literally, in the form of her first painting: a UFO drawing up a geyser of blood. It's quite the change from the peaceful mountains and calm creeks painted by Carl for his mostly-senior viewers. But her fresh energy–and new female empowerment–push Carl to the sidelines. Soon enough, he's left alone as an aloof artist and out-of-time man.
If this setup sounds similar to Anchorman, it's because it really is. I wonder if this was a conscious or unconscious template that writer-director Brit McAdams had in mind when creating this movie. With his curly blonde afro and woodsman-styled facial hair, even Carl's comically dated '70s appearance channels that of Ron Burgundy.
Paint predictably continues with what you might expect: Carl's once-fawned-over charm and sex appeal turn quickly into misogyny. And worse (to him), his landscape paintings are soon enough regarded as dull, superficial, and uninspired. The film weaves in something of a love triangle, in which Carl works with his former love, Katherine (Michaela Watkins). Surprisingly, she also explores a new side of her femininity with a fling with Ambrosia.
What's more unfortunate is that I did find an interesting story a few layers underneath Paint, which comes about towards the end of the film. When Carl's sidelined and down and out, he finally confronts how his "hotel art" compares to more compelling works like modernism. The film somewhat confusingly takes place in the modern day, not the '70s that the movie constructs itself to be in.
He wanders into the Burlington modern art museum and looks at art in a Ferris Bueller-like montage, which was compelling. And Carl going mad, flinging paint from the rafters, is when the movie feels most alive. Could there have been a version of this film that was more interested in telling that story? Versus just being edged out of a low-performing public access channel? Does Paint itself stay in too familiar territory to be worthwhile?
I wish the film followed the blueprint that last year's Weird Al parody-biography Weird: The Al Yankovic Story did so well: weaving biography and wild absurdism together actually drew laughs. But Paint is more of a low-grade daze; the kind of sluggish high you'd feel sparking some pot found in the back of your dresser drawer from years ago.
While perfectly cast, Owen Wilson is only so watchable as the film drags on. It's enough to make you wonder how much longer it'll take for the paint to finish drying.
1h 36m. Rated PG-13 for sexual/suggestive material, drug use, and smoking.
https://youtu.be/K9TX-6HyuOc
The Five Devils (Les Cinqe Diables)
Adèle Exarchopoulos, the alluring French actress best known for 2013's Blue is the Warmest Color, has an obvious beauty to her. But it's her beguiling aura that communicates something more complex underneath that makes her transfixing to watch onscreen.
Exarchopoulos stars in The Five Devils (Les Cinqe Diables), a new witchy thriller that aims to unsettle by unearthing the unspoken parts of people's past lives. To level-set: it's a film in which no actual devils pop up; but rather, symbolic ones. This might disappoint those looking for more of a demonic occultist bloodbath horror along the lines of Hereditary.
Instead, director Lea Mysis's film is something more akin to a romantic drama with supernatural elements (oh, and time travel). The Five Devils is a uniquely observed, surprisingly tender, and thought-provoking film. It explores past loves, desires, and how repressed feelings can quite literally come back to haunt us.
The film opens with a raging, blazing inferno, with screams far off in the distance. It's unclear why a few young women in sparkly unitards gather around it consoling each other. Among them is Joanne (Exarchopoulos) who in the present day, now works at a community pool. She follows this by plunging into an icy cold lake. The film's immediate focus on fire and water emphasizes the characters' connection to natural elements, as well as the dualities that link them together.
The elements are literally alluring to Joanne's young adolescent daughter, Vicky (Sally Dramé). With her quiet, but all-knowing vibes, Vicky busies herself by jarring and labeling various scraps of earth, making them into an odd personal collection. That alone might be just an innocent eccentricity but it's when Vicky reveals to Joanne one day just how powerful her sense of smell is (Joanne actively tries to hide from Vicky during a playful game of hide and seek, but fails) that she reveals something uniquely special about herself.
This slight disturbance convenes with the even more distressing news that Joanne's husband, Jimmy (Moustapha Mbengue), shares: he's invited his sister, Julia (Swala Emati), to stay with them for a few days. We're left as confused as Vicky to see why this angers Joanne so deeply. Drawn to her newly arrived, mysterious aunt–and continuing to jar her interests–Vicky mixes them all together, and inadvertently creates a youngster's version of a cauldron, which sends her back in time.
Vicky sees her mother at seventeen years old, as well as her father. They're accompanied by another friend, Nadine (Daphné Patakias), as well as Julia, all palling around to various degrees of physical affection. They're all close, but noticeably, it's Joanna and Julia whose chemistry burns hottest. Vicky moves throughout them like a ghost. Until she gets to Julia, who screams upon locking eyes with her: Julia is the only one who sees her like a ghost walking among them.
It's here where The Five Devils is most engrossing. Vicky continues to dive back into the past to see more of her mother and aunt's special friendship. A queer relationship–let alone a bi-racial one–was not something that was publicly approved of, clearly. We also see Joanne and Julia's real-time reconnection happen, too. Clearly, there are flames that still flicker with each other.
Written by Léa Mysius and Paul Guilhaume, The Five Devils is an inventive supernatural thriller but it's a more intimate romance than I was expecting. The film is more interesting, and more successful when exploring the forbidden relationships and lost loves that plague these characters. Also, don't forget about their fourth friend Nadine, who was noticeably affectionate towards Jimmy.
At this point, you might wonder: what, or who are The Five Devils? Well, it'd have to be the four young friends, who (spoiler alert) all end up without their true love. And the fifth? I could only deduce that it was the daughter, Vicky. A child born out of false love, she is uniquely able to bring them all toward their rightful lovers.
The Five Devils might not be a new cult classic. But it's fairly intoxicating and stylishly hypnotic in ways that I haven't seen in queer witchy thrillers in recent times.
1h 43m.
https://youtu.be/GlU6SSYIMYc
Rodeo
From writer-director Lola Quivoron comes Rodeo, the story of a tough young woman whose passion for riding motorbikes leads her into a world of criminality and danger. Bringing an authentically-captured French motorbiking subculture to the big screen, Rodeo is both a gritty character study and crime movie that plays like Emily the Criminal, The Place Beyond the Pines, and Fast & Furious.
If life is a rodeo, then Julia (Julie Ledru) is a wild bronco, unable to be tamed. The movie opens with her shooting out of her home as if a starting gun has just been fired. She's intent on doing just one thing: testing out a new motorbike. After inspecting it from an unsuspecting male seller, she asks for a test drive. Which, she subsequently races off with, her middle finger blazing behind.
This says exactly what we need to know about her. That she's unstoppable, and only lives life in one direction: forward, and fast. With her oversized shirts and unkept hair, Julia's clearly not interested in the typical girly world. We soon enough see where she feels most at home: on a motorbike speeding down an open road.
Julia takes her new possession to the local dragstrip, where young bikers fly past her, popping wheelies and tricks that amaze and wrack the nerves. Noticeably, she's the only woman in this mostly male world. However, the insults that the aggressive crowd of bros hurls her way bounce off of her like a steel engine. When the cops come to bust it up, she scatters away with a new group, taken in by one boy Kaïs (Yannis Lafki). Without a place to sleep, she asks Kaïs and his crew if she can sleep in their garage (like a bike herself).
She soon learns that the crew steals and flips bikes. And it's under the direction of the ringleader, Domino (Sébastien Schroeder). Fearless and looking for refuge and the opportunity to ride, Julia offers to lend her services of stealing bikes. And so, she does what she does best: tries out bikes, then speeds off leaving unsuspecting men in the dust. The closer she gets to the crew and begins to establish trust, the more she feels like family. It all leads up to a heist, the climax of the movie, that has deadly results.
Rodeo throttles in and out of exhilarating moments, as well as narrative consistency. Particularly the riding sequences, when bikers rev engines that roar and pop wheelies, feel exhilarating. The film also downshifts, into a slower more emotional story. We see that Julia gets closer to her new makeshift criminal family, making for strong emotional moments.
Writer-director Lola Quivoron creates a world that feels real, raw, beautiful, and dangerous. Julia's world is most compelling when it juxtaposes the dualities mirroring "throttling" and "braking" of riding itself: balancing the fast with the slow; the loud with the quiet; the male with the female; and the peace and danger.
Her relationship with Kaïs has a hint of romance, but it's the bond that Julia develops with Domino's wife, Ophélie (Antonia Buresi), and her young son, that is the more compelling, heartfelt relationship. We see how Ophélie is similarly trapped in a world of oppressive males, which Julia notices and bonds over (in a familial, but also suggestively intimate way).
There's also the storyline of Julia being haunted by a tragic death that takes place earlier on in the film, as well. Nightmares begin to plague her (though to the film's detriment, not much adds beyond that). With no exposition, Julia's backstory is a mystery (she literally asks to be called "Unknown" in her heists). It's as if she herself is a bike without any identifying plates, made of different parts she replaces along her hard-lived journey of life.
As Julia, Julie Ledru is perfect for the role. She's tough and unafraid to get physical when needed. But she also plays the slower, quieter, emotionally affected moments that the film demands of her as well. It's here where her face betrays how haunted she is. She can more than hold her own in a world where everyone's edging her out, but it will soon take its toll.
Raphaël Vandenbussche's cinematography is beautiful and evocative. Gritty handheld cinematography, composed in ultra-wide format captures the wide frames that the motorbike sequences and film need.
While Rodeo falls into a familiar crime story that didn't leave me particularly thrilled or roused, the riding sequences themselves are quite exciting. Blazing fast shots take on an ethereal, transcendent feeling. At its fiery end, we understand that for some, riding fast is the only speed that people can live.
1h 45m
https://youtu.be/F5iXef4071U
The Quiet Girl (An Cailín Ciúin)
Being neglected and denied affection and love is a tragedy that can keep a person from becoming, or even knowing, their best self. But having the fortune of receiving love is a gift that allows us to grow tall and full like a beautiful forest of trees.
Those themes form the story of The Quiet Girl (now playing in select theaters). Ireland's official submission and nominee for Best International Feature Film at this year's Academy Awards (spoken in Irish with English subtitles), The Quiet Girl is a tender, sensitive, moving film about a young girl who experiences care and affection for the first time in her young life.
Set in rural Ireland in 1981, The Quiet Girl tells the story of Cáit (Catherine Clinch), a quiet girl whose dysfunctional family sends her away for the summer to live with relatives she has never met.
The couple–quiet themselves, middle-aged and middle-class–look after her in their modest, tidy home. Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley) lends affection to Cáit instantly, brushing her hair and dressing her with the family's extra clothes when she's left without her suitcase.
Initially uneasy (as wetting the bed always indicates), Cáit slowly begins to feel more comfortable in the house. She helps prepare meals and do simple chores alongside Eibhlín, who smiles affectionately at her. Soon after, the formerly despondent Seán (Andrew Bennett) warms to Cáit, bringing her to work with him on their dairy farm, and their connection grows as well.
It's a newfound world of care for Cáit, the family making her feel safe by telling her, "There are no secrets in this house." Except, Cáit learns about a large secret the family keeps (why do the clothes she was initially given fit so coincidentally well?), forcing her to learn more about the world.
The above plot point might make The Quiet Girl instantly sound like a mystery or thriller, but I ultimately found it to be a modest domestic drama. Writer-director Colm Bairéad adapts the film from the short story "Foster" (by Claire Keegan) with devoted patience. Bairéad and editor John Murphy match the film's slow pace to that of Cáit's slowly absorbing learning of the world.
Director of photography Kate McCullough sets Cáit in a dark, drab, colorless world early on. But when she moves to the new home surrounded by healthily flourishing nature, greens overpower and show the life Cáit begins to live.
Newcomer Catherine Clinch makes her feature film acting debut here in the lead role of Cáit. Clinch has the essence of a quiet girl, taking in the world through her large eyes and silent, unimposing behavior.
As Eibhlín, Carrie Crowley (Vikings) is aptly heartfelt. And Andrew Bennett (God's Creatures) is able to grow into the role, surprisingly taking over the main parental role of affection.
Some of the best moments of the film are the sequences in which Cáit runs down the driveway to get the mail with Seán, a moment of "father-daughter" connection. Looking up to see she's underneath a forest of highly grown trees, it's clear that she is also blooming while being here, how tall she's grown when she must return home to her biological family.
The film reminded me of other quiet films about childhood, particularly Céline Sciamma's Petite Maman and Lukas Dhont's Close, the latter being nominated for Best International Feature as well.
At one hour and thirty-four minutes, The Quiet Girl isn't long by any stretch. However, it's about an hour until the film reveals its climactic plot point, and the film doesn't exactly build toward this moment with scenes that made it pay off for me in too big of a way. But the film speaks volumes to the point that we should all give our love and affection so that we can help each other live our lives loudly.
1h 34m.
https://youtu.be/LGWyqty2m-A
Infinity Pool
This review originally ran on January 25, 2023, during the Sundance Film Festival.
Taking the plunge into the darkest depths of depravity, Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth star in writer-director Brandon Cronenberg's shocking new film, the socially-conscious horror satire, Infinity Pool.
Here, Cronenberg imagines a world where the rich are able to indulge in all of their hedonistic pleasures without consequence. It's a wildly graphic look at the wealthy elite and a perfect midnight movie. It should come with all sorts of warning labels on it: it's what you get if you combined Eyes Wide Shut, The White Lotus, and a frightening LSD trip.
Premiering at this year's Sundance Film Festival, Infinity Pool shocked audiences (who saw the uncut version). The film had to make edits to get an R rating for theaters, such as cutting the shot of Skarsgård's–erm... "deposit" hitting the ground–after being unexpectedly pleasured by Goth from behind. I can only imagine that the film's R-rated version did not include the entirety of the many strobe-filled orgy sequences. But don't worry, as both versions show a naked Skarsgård pulled around on all fours in a leather dog collar.
Impressively, Skarsgård and Goth continue to use their star status to do categorically unhinged arthouse movies. The pair stars as uninspired writer James Foster (Skarsgård), vacationing at an all-inclusive resort, and the mysterious Gabi (Goth) who he meets there. After an accidental fatality leads James to be sentenced, Gabi introduces him to a loophole he can use to buy his way out of legality. Twistedly, It involves using the film's title, which duplicates someone facing their punishment in the form of a twisted execution.
Harrowingly, witnessing their doubles (who also have their very real consciousnesses) horrifically executed wipes their slates clean. And so, with his new lease on life, James indulges Gabi and her socialite friends in running rampant. They hold people hostage, assault them, and have sex and drugs–lots of it.
However, all of this uninhibited hedonism quickly turns into hell for James, who becomes existentially conflicted, as if living a more depraved version of Groundhog's Day. A life free from penalty and morality, he loses who he is altogether.
Clearly, the idea of American upper-class societies masking dark sub-cultures of violence underneath fascinates Brandon Cronenberg. His first feature film, 2020's Possessor, showed how the wealthy could pay for contracted assassinations in the form of agents slipping into people's minds. These themes of paranoia and conspiracies of truth, with a macabre but comic presentation, definitely continue in the line of his father's famous filmography.
Cronenberg continues to claim visual auteur status by putting depraved, psychedelic pleasure on the big screen. And yet, taking the biggest risk here is the aforementioned Skarsgård and Goth. Supposedly, Skarsgård went from 2022's epic outdoor adventure film The Northman to this under the allure that he would be able to enjoy a relaxing resort life. While that might have been true, he's also reduced to an emotionally destroyed version of a person, so it wasn't a total holiday in the sun.
Captivatingly, Mia Goth uses her allure and appeal to a dangerous degree here, playing full-on psychotically evil. With this and Pearl, she is asserting herself as a fearless horror queen. The arthouse and horror scene is lucky to have stars like this who make these movies.
Through and through, Infinity Pool is a midnight movie. Wildly and shockingly inventive with fearless performance, it should be appreciated and enjoyed for its vision. Indulge your senses and your curiosities that are the ecstasy of horror and psychedelic madness. You know you want to.
1h 57m. Rated R for graphic violence, disturbing material, strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use, and some language.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVnIMvVEkrA&ab_channel=NEON
Sundance: Magazine Dreams
The socially awkward outsider who obsesses to achieve a warped sense of greatness–to an unhealthy (or even dangerous) degree–is a character type that looms large in cinema.
The template, of course, begins with Scorsese's 1976 classic Taxi Driver. Though more recently, we can look to modern films centered around the discomfortingly dangerous loner that furthers this character type, too. Take Jake Gyllenhaal as a tabloid-crazed reporter in 2014's Nightcrawler, or Miles Teller as a jazz-fixated drummer in 2014's Whiplash. Both lose track of all sense of reality at the expense of their physical and mental well-being.
Clearly, the character of the unhinged and volatile workaholic speaks to a recurring type of person within our society (or, at least one that modern male directors just seem particularly drawn towards). Perhaps this type of person is the embodiment of the American persona on steroids.
The new movie Magazine Dreams delivers the latest of these unhinged male characters and quite literally puts him on performance-enhancing drugs – to terrifying effect. Written and directed by Elijah Bynum, Magazine Dreams tells the story of an amateur bodybuilder who pushes his body and psyche to the brink in the hopes of becoming a world-class champion.
Premiering at this year's Sundance Film Festival, the film shocked critics upon its release. To say the film is "intense" would be an understatement. It's a full-blown assault on the senses that's both physically and psychologically punishing. As the central character, Jonathan Majors hulks out here, bulking a body that is nearly unbelievable to see.
Killian Maddox (yes, "kill" and "mad" can both be found in this character's name) lives a simple life. Bagging items at a local grocery while awkwardly flirting with the checkout girl (Haley Bennett), he lives with his father in a small-town suburb. He is also inhumanly jacked, working out non-stop in his garage. He surrounds himself with images of bodybuilders that paper his bedroom walls, the ultimate image of success.
Killian's life goal is to one day attain the perfect body and become a world-champion bodybuilder. There's just one thing he can't control: his rage. So when local handymen scam his father, Killian erupts with anger (imagine Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love but built like a Greek God). Seeing red, Killian goes on a warpath. He demolishes the perpetuator's storefront with his bare hands, an astonishing moment in the film that leaves him bloody and broken and the audience in awe.
This triggers Killian's tragic descent into hell. Haunted by the fallout–and by those whose store he destroyed–Killian is left bruised, bloodied, and broken, and subsequently loses the ability to compete. But he's still alive. And like the Terminator, Killian pushes through the pain, leaving no one safe from his personal warpath to inflict pain onto those who have wronged him.
Magazine Dreams is a tense, brutal, but beautifully made movie. The artful, lush cinematography by Adam Arkapaw certainly gives the film "dreamy" compositions that warp Killian's reality. While Magazine Dreams is evocative and affecting, some of the writing holds it back from greatness. At just over 2 hours, the film runs too long (I hope 30 minutes are trimmed from its sprawling final act when it is officially distributed).
And then, there's Killian as a character. Clearly, he's mentally ill. He experiences migraines, and nightmares, and hears his absent mother's voice in his head. He's schizophrenic, making for a character whose origin story is more like the Joker than anything more realistic. Today's internet age would accurately classify him as an incel. Someone who inflicts pain on society for their inability to relate with him.
There's a chance that Magazine Dreams might be too disturbing to enter the larger mainstream conversation. However, Majors deserves recognition and praise for his astonishing feat here. Not just for his inhuman physical transformation (which, holy shit). But for the intensity and way in which he loses himself in this unhinged performance. It's unnerving, punishing, and polarizing. But sometimes, that's what it takes to achieve greatness.
2h 4m.