2023 is Jonathan Majors’ year, but most people haven’t seen his best performance yet

‘Magazine Dreams’ debuted at Sundance earlier this year, where Majors’ performance again received critical acclaim – although some critics slammed the film for its running time and plot. /Film’s Chris Evangelista liked the film and wrote in his review that Majors “dominated the screen with his frightening, funny, mind-blowing performance.” He’s right, but the words on the page don’t do justice to the experience of actually watching Magazine Dreams. Elijah Bynum’s brutal and unrelenting thriller will drive audiences nuts with a story that bears several parallels to Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader’s Taxi Driver. Magazine Dreams is just as hard to watch as it is to look away; As the film reached its climax, I counted down the remaining minutes and watched through my fingers.

Bynum’s ambitious film succeeds thanks to a combination of tightly woven elements, from direction to editing to score, but Majors combines the nagging psychological slow burn with a panic-inducing performance. Killian is not doing well in more ways than one. He’s a wild ball of trauma, ‘roid rage, toxic masculinity, insanity, and a profound inability to connect socially the way he wants to. It’s that last part that makes the film – and Majors’ performance – so memorable. The film’s mesmerizing pace pushes viewers to the edge of our ability to feel empathy, showing us Killian at his most terrifying and inexcusable form before he snaps back like a rubber band in scenes that make us wish we could hug him.