This film premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in January where it won the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award and was a nominee for the Grand Jury Prize for Elijah Bynum in his sophomore feature. Searchlight Pictures, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, acquired the film in a bidding war. Many people thought the star of this film, Jonathan Majors, gave an Oscar-worthy performance. Many thought the Disney company would mount a campaign for Majors to get him that Oscar. At the time, Majors was featured in the Disney series Loki (2021) and he was about to star in the film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) in February. Plans were to build a blockbuster around Majors' character called Avengers: Kang Dynasty, which was set to release in 2026. However, in March 2023, Majors was arrested and charged with assault and harassment in what was considered a case of domestic abuse. In December of that year, Majors was convicted and sentenced to a year of counseling and probation. Searchlight dropped the film and in January 2024, Briarcliff Entertainment, a distributor created in 2018 that has become known for releasing controversial titles, picked up the film and has now put it in theaters.
Many feel like they don't want to watch this film now, given Majors' legal decision. I understand how domestic abuse cases can be triggering. Given that Majors' character in this film is a person who seems like he would be prone to domestic violence and abuse, that might also turn people off. Yet, this film doesn't ever depict any such domestic abuse and certainly none against women. Many talk about separating art from the artist, but, for some, that's difficult or impossible. Armie Hammer is one recent example of how the art couldn't be separated from the artist's alleged misdeeds or criminality. It hasn't happened to a lot of young African American actors who have been on the rise, as Majors was. The other comparison could be to Nate Parker who was accused of rape or sexual assault.
Yet, there have been other men, White men, like Roman Polanski who was convicted of raping a teenage girl and Alec Baldwin who shot and killed a woman on set, and both of those men continue to work in the entertainment industry. Michael Fassbender was accused of domestic abuse against his girlfriend, and even went on to be nominated for Academy Awards. Brad Pitt was accused of domestic abuse against his children and ex-wife, Angelina Jolie, but he went on to win an Academy Award. This is not to excuse their behavior or even justify it. However, it does demonstrate that certain men can be "cancelled" for lack of a better phrase and yet still continue in Hollywood. Will Smith committed an act of violence on live television during the 94th Academy Awards when he slapped Chris Rock. Smith was banned from the Oscars but Smith is still making films, such as Bad Boy: Ride or Die (2024), as well as several projects on the horizon. It'll be up to the individual if they want to see Smith in those projects or any of the aforementioned actors in whatever projects they do moving forward.
Jonathan Majors is no question a talented actor and prior to the incident in 2023, people were saying he gave an Oscar-worthy performance and those people were correct. He is incredible here. I remember first noticing him in The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019) and Majors has simply been a tour de force ever since. Here, he stars as Killian Maddox, an aspiring bodybuilder in Los Angeles who lives with his ailing grandfather and who idolizes a professional bodybuilder and Mr. Olympia champion. Killian has done some shows, but he hasn't qualified for professional competitions. He's still an amateur. To pay the bills and help support his grandfather, Killian works at a grocery store. Otherwise, he's very antisocial. He doesn't have any friends or people to whom he can talk. He instead obsesses over bodybuilding. He might in fact be OCD or suffering from some kind of mental health issues.
He's currently in therapy, which might be court-ordered therapy. He's reportedly had a problem with aggression and exhibiting violent behaviors. It's assumed that he's been in trouble with the law and has been arrested before. We learn that his aggression and other mental health issues might stem from the fact that his parents were killed in a murder-suicide at the hands of Killian's father, which Killian may or may not have witnessed when he was a little boy. He was then raised by his grandfather, a Vietnam Veteran who might not have had the capacity to handle such mental health issues and as a Vietnam Veteran, an African American one, Killian's grandfather might have had mental health issues himself.
One could describe this as a sports drama. Most sports dramas, even ones with a little bit of an edge like Creed III (2023) in which Majors co-starred, have some kind of inspirational aspect that's usually overwhelming or otherwise a happy ending. Most sports dramas end with some kind of hope or uplift. It's rare for a sports film to be as dark as Bynum's film is here. It probably is partially a reflection of the fact that the sport in question here is bodybuilding, which is a non-team sport. It's an individual sport that one has to do alone. Bynum certainly underscores the isolation and loneliness, not only required but that it can also breed. Most athletes require a singular focus in order to ready their bodies and their minds, but bodybuilding can necessitate an additional layer of isolation and lack of interaction that the others might not.
The sport is also different in that unlike a team sport, the points awarded aren't scored in some objective measure like how many times an athlete puts a ball through a hoop or runs into an end zone. In bodybuilding, the scoring is subjective and based on whether or not a particular judge thinks one's muscles are sufficient. Killian is particularly obsessed over making his arms better because a judge told him that his deltoids weren't big enough. Killian then proceeds to kill himself trying to make his deltoids and his legs bigger, even using steroids to deleterious, side effects. Killian might not necessarily be a drug addict in terms of his steroids use but he's some equivalent to that and there have been sports films that have delved into those areas, such as Leonardo DiCaprio in The Basketball Diaries (1995), which is about substance abuse and abuse from others. Abuse from others, such as a tough coach or manager, has been seen in such films as Foxcatcher (2014) or even a non-sports film like Whiplash (2014).
Often sports films are about the struggle to make it to a professional league or even if in a professional league, the struggle to stay in it. That is in a lot of ways what Bynum's film is. Killian is struggling like no other to break into professional bodybuilding. It's about his drive to do so and to be the best at it. As he says, his goal is to be on the cover of some publication, such as Men's Health, which is ironic given that Jonathan Majors did make the cover of that magazine's November 2022 issue. For Killian, it's all about legacy and wanting to be remembered even after he's dead. It could also be that he's chasing fame and celebrity to some degree. At first, I thought this film might go the way of Sugar (2008) or the more recent Boogie (2021), which co-stars Taylour Paige who pops up for one scene in this film. However, the film makes a sharp turn toward Big Fan (2009), starring Patton Oswalt, which is about how fanaticism or celebrity worship can be just as deleterious as steroids abuse.
Mike O'Hearn (American Gladiators) is a real-life, professional bodybuilder who has been very successful at it since the 90's. Here, he plays Brad Vanderhorn, a professional bodybuilder who is the object of Killian's obsessions and possibly the object of Killian's affections. I think it was smart of Bynum to take a film that is in many ways about toxic masculinity in almost literal form and that in many ways is about "involuntary celibate" or incel culture, which was a term originally coined by a queer person about men who have trouble dating, and takes it to its logical conclusion and its queer conclusion as well. Killian's attraction to Brad, his idolization, isn't just limited to Brad's athleticism. It is a literal attraction to Brad's body, specifically his abs. Anyone who idolizes male bodybuilders who are male themselves are inherently or subtly submitting to same-sex attraction.
This film is about mental health and often how our culture and institutions fail those struggling on the margins. Even though Killian is getting therapy, his therapist seems woefully inadequate to help him. She asks him questions about his life and when he's obviously lying, she does nothing to address or prescribe anything. It's not that he needs drugs, but some kind of treatment feels vital. He probably couldn't afford it, but a more active social worker or life coach seems necessary. A lot of incel people turn to the Internet for help, which we see Killian do and it's there that young men can get sucked into radical individuals or radical groups that often can result in violence and even mass shootings. That's the fear that lingers in this film and Majors is giving a performance that sells it perfectly. Majors is somewhere between Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver (1976) and Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler (2008) with filmmaking from Bynum that rises to those Scorsese-esque levels.
Rated R for violent content, drug use, sexual material, nudity and language.
Running Time: 2 hrs. and 4 mins.
In theaters.