Publication Date: 07-19-2025

Magazine Dreams (2025) review

Dir. Elijah Bynum

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★★★★

Following its premiere at Sundance in 2023, and the ensuing shitstorm that was the subsequent SAG-AFTRA strike coupled with the assault allegations against Jonathan Majors, it looked like Magazine Dreams was going to have a fate similar to Louis C.K.’s I Love You, Daddy. What was primed to be an awards contender for the 96th Academy Awards instead found itself in purgatory after Searchlight Pictures dropped the film from the release calendar all together. In October 2024, Briarcliff Entertainment acquired the domestic distribution rights to the film, and it finally saw a low-key release in March 2025. It was so low-key that I wasn’t aware it was even released until I found the DVD on a Walmart shelf.

The film was directed by Elijah Bynum, among the most accomplished directors not to have his own Wikipedia page. His debut, Hot Summer Nights, starred Timothée Chalamet, while his screenwriting follow-up, The Deliverance, featured Glenn Close and Omar Epps. Magazine Dreams is his richest, most serious film to date, offering a complex examination of a troubled individual that also serves as a piercing look at the adult male loneliness problem that plagues American society today.

This time around, Bynum’s subject is Killian Maddox (Majors), a simpleton bodybuilder with a one-track mind: put his body thru absolute turmoil for a chance at greatness. His chiseled physique is two-fold, obtained thanks to a discipline exercise regime and powerful steroids. Seeing his bulging pecs and intimidating muscles in person would likely scare a dog off a meat-truck, but Killian isn’t viewed as an Adonis by the judges at various bodybuilding competitions.

Killian continues to wolf down thousands of calories a day and subject himself to grueling workouts in hopes of winning an elusive medal for his achievements. As the title states, his goal is to end up gracing the cover of bodybuilding magazines, like his idol, Brad Vanderhorn, played by four-time “Mr. Universe” Michael O’Hearn. Killian writes many letters to Brad in hopes of a response, all while caring for his ailing grandfather (Harrison Page) and trying to strike up a relationship with his grocery store clerk coworker (Haley Bennett), with whom he has one of the most painfully awkward dates you can imagine.

Magazine Dreams inextricably links itself to Killian’s quest for immortality. Rarely do we get two or three successive shots where he’s absent. Spending an upwards of two hours with the same character should tell us a lot about them, and by the time the credits roll, we feel like we get a complete portrait of Killian, complexities and all. Here’s a man who struggles with small-talk and relatability. Not only is he pursuing a lifestyle foreign to most people, he doesn’t show much of an interest in learning about anyone on his periphery. Conversations with his therapist following a violent altercation go nowhere, as he cannot bring himself to be honest with her. His tendencies to overshare and babble, almost incoherently, ruin his chances at courting his coworker, and the only time he seems vaguely happy is when he’s filming his bodybuilding routines for an audience of insulting YouTuber commenters.

A portrayal of such a phenomenon doesn’t work unless the one doing the portraying is up to par with the material. Jonathan Majors is fantastic as Killian, a fitting mix of Travis Bickle and Arthur Fleck. His performance echoes the obsessive nature of his character Damian Anderson in Creed III, but without the cockiness. Killian is the kind of person who would picture himself as Damian, but never meaningfully hold someone accountable. Majors is a mix of frightened, vulnerable, helpless, obsessed, and multi-dimensional in Bynum’s film; the perfect muse for a young filmmaker.

Magazine Dreams has something to say about the epidemic of male loneliness in our culture. So many young, single men have adopted the internet as their only outlet in the modern day. These men are socially inept, bitterly unloved, and angry all the more. In their vulnerable states, they become obsessed with something, be it violence, video games, pornography, or in Killian’s case, bodybuilding. Killian is aware that he’s unwell, most notably after a fateful doctor’s visit where a potential surgery throws everything he’s worked for into flux. Bynum’s examination of this troubled character is one of empathy to the extent that Killian doesn’t seem capable of committing to what his best for him.

Bynum’s intimate character study of Killian is complemented by Adam Arkapaw’s warm cinematography, which favors spotlighting and often drowns backgrounds in vantablack nothingness. It’s an appropriate aesthetic decision for a film that has a single-minded antihero at its center. Killian is so wrapped up in himself and his pursuits that nothing else matters. I found myself mourning for the human beneath the chiseled exterior, and when the third act played out as beautifully as it did and eventually dissolved into credits, I was equal parts relieved and emotionally spent. That is what a great movie is all about.

Starring: Jonathan Majors, Haley Bennett, Taylour Paige, Mike O’Hearn, Harrison Page, and Harriet Sansom Harris. Directed by: Elijah Bynum.