‘Magazine Dreams’ Review: Jonathan Majors Delivers a Powerhouse Performance as a Tormented Bodybuilder
thewrap.coma comprehensive examination of every factor, internal and external, that afflicts Killian, as well as their possible solutions, “Magazine Dreams” begins to feel convoluted with too many threads to rein in, all of them with relevant themes.Many of these subplots revolve around Killian expressing frustration and anger against a world that renders him invisible via self-destructive acts, which in turn confront him with police brutality and bigotry.
But he also searches for affection in the arms of a sex worker (Taylour Paige) and even engages in a homosexual encounter to try to heal his intimate wounds.
Through it all, Majors’ hyper-committed transformation, both physical and within the headspace that he had to inhabit during the brief 26 days of shooting, astonishes.To witness such a visceral, ticking time-bomb of a performance is to get lost in the engrossing and terrifying beauty of a tornado that shatters everything in its path — not out of malice, but because Killian hasn’t been afforded the tools to learn another way.
Majors veers between soft-spoken shyness and indomitable fury to craft the multisided persona of a soul living in perpetual chaos.
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