Review Roundup: Here’s What Everyone Is Saying About ‘Magazine Dreams’

Magazine Dreams debuted in the United States during the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Sundance Institute)

Where To Watch: TBD

Starring: Jonathan Majors, Haley Bennett, Taylour Paige, Mike O’Hearn, Bradley Stryker

Synopsis: Killian Maddox lives with his ailing veteran grandfather, obsessively working out between court-mandated therapy appointments and part-time shifts at a grocery store where he harbors a crush on a friendly cashier. Though Killian’s struggles to read social cues and maintain control of his volatile temper amplify his sense of disconnection amid a hostile world, nothing deters him from his fiercely protected dream of bodybuilding superstardom, not even the doctors who warn that he’s causing permanent damage to his body with his quest.

Behind The Scenes

Critics’ Chatter

“At certain points Killian goes “crazy,” yet Majors’ brilliant performance cues us to the grander note of despair that’s always driving the explosion. Travis Bickle, in Taxi Driver, was crazy too, but the beauty of that movie is that his disconnected, pent-up fury expressed something that’s there in a lot of us. Magazine Dreams creates a character haunting in his extremity. But his dream becomes ours, as does the heartbreaking prospect of it being snuffed before our eyes.”

–Owen Gleiberman, Variety | Read More

“Jon Otazua’s editing tracks Killian’s descent with sinuous fluidity that fuels the story’s fatalistic progression. And Hill’s tonally precise and richly varied score — laced with classical passages from Elgar, Wagner and Saint-Saens — makes haunting use of mournful strings and employs urgent drumming to chilling effect. Its flaws notwithstanding, Magazine Dreams is a profoundly unsettling experience from which it’s impossible to look away.”

–David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter | Read More

“Magazine Dreams might be read as making a compelling case that America’s racial divide has been the suppressed content of every similar such story. After all, on which group of men does both the blame and the brunt of society’s inequities usually fall? In Bynum’s flawed but often riveting film, outward physical perfection becomes both the mask and the sign of many kinds of dreams deferred.”

–Pat Brown, Slant Magazine | Read More

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