A film review of 'Magazine Dreams' written and directed by Elijah Bynum and starring Jonathan Majors and Haley Bennett.

In Elijah Bynum’s Magazine Dreams, Jonathan Majors plays a roided-up rage monster who hurts those unfortunate enough to cross his warpath. I’ll let you do the association to real life events on your own here. It’s a shame, truly, that Majors, who was convicted of assaulting his ex-girlfriend before being swiftly ejected from the MCU, is a person of objectively questionable actions. Because he’s also an objectively great actor. His turn in Magazine Dreams—as an emotionally-isolated, physically imposing bodybuilder with frighteningly low IQ and EQ—would be among the best performances of any year. The guy can act. But watching him embody this volatile, dangerous man, knowing what he did off-screen, makes for an alarmingly uncomfortable experience, as it is alarmingly difficult to separate the art from the artist in key moments.

Despite this sick twist of fate in which life imitates art, Magazine Dreams is a largely effective feel bad movie. Reminiscent of Darren Aronofsky’s impressively dour body of work, the sophomore feature from writer-director Elijah Bynum is sure to elicit a strong response— be it positive or negative, this movie will will make you feel something—as it digs into this bleak character study of an increasingly isolated man on the brink of collapse.

Majors plays Killian Maddox, a bodybuilder with aspirations arguably outside his reach. Physically, Killian is a force—all sinew and beef, militarily grooming his appearance between lengthy gym sessions and careful dieting. Mentally though, he has the emotional and intellectual capacity of a child. Killian is either somewhere on the autism spectrum or dealing with an unspecified cognitive impairment—it’s never made explicit, but it’s clear he’s not all there. He thinks in black and white, communicating with the declarative simplicity of a 12-year-old.

When overwhelmed by his emotions, he turns to violence, threatening on multiple occasions to “split [someone’s] head open and drink their brains like soup”. His rage is both self-destructive and tragic—throwing himself, often face-first, into plates of glass, perhaps in an effort to feel something, anything. At 250 pounds of pure muscle, Killian’s simple-mindedness is terrifying. We never know when he’ll pop off, or who will be in his sights. What’s even scarier is how often his violence is triggered not by pure malice, but by social awkwardness—his inability to process rejection or discomfort sending him into an uncontrollable spiral. His anger is less about pure aggression and more about his failure to comprehend how people work, a symptom of his undiagnosed mental issues. And as the fleeting reality of his magazine dreams slips away, the danger to himself and others intensifies.

In another multiverse, Majors could have won an Academy Award for his work here. In this one, it may end up being the tragic capstone on a too-short career.

Some may argue Magazine Dreams is misery porn or too incel-sympathetic (see: the response to Joker), but it’s an undeniably powerful vision of how isolation and obsession can corrode a person’s soul. Killian shows flashes of promise—both as a bodybuilder and as a person—most notably in an early date with his shy coworker (Haley Bennett). His awkwardness makes him deeply uncomfortable in social settings, and when he senses others reacting to that discomfort, it only amplifies his own, creating a cycle of rejection that feeds his fury. And since his physical prowess is the only thing he feels he has control over, it’s what he turns to to get himself out of a difficult situation. Whatever hope he has of being a famous athlete or simply dating a nice girl is inevitably crushed under the weight of his own rage.

And yet, I get it. Killian is awkward and hard to be around—honestly, I shutter to think of what a social exchange with him would entail. His interactions are painfully cringe, rehearsed. In moments where he has to remind himself to smile, the result is chilling—his face contorts into something unnatural, like a caged animal going through a rehearsed routine. And as his constant rejection fuels his blind fury, leveling what could have been an impressive career, the parallels to Majors’ own downfall become eerily poignant.

CONCLUSION: Jonathan Majors delivers yet another fantastic performance as a bruiser with limited mental and emotional capacity, but the film’s impact is inevitably tainted by his real-life history of abuse. Magazine Dreams is a difficult, often uncomfortable watch—yet still a gripping character study of a deeply broken man.