Jonathan Majors is one of our generation’s great talents.  His last appearance at Sundance was in The Last Black Man In San Francisco, an achingly beautiful, hauntingly melancholic look at gentrification.  There, he was quietly, powerfully effective in a supporting role. He’s since gone to be the marquee star of bigger projects, such as HBO’s flawed Lovecraft Country, demonstrating his range, versatility, and boundless charisma. He’s the rare actor that’s comfortable as both a leading man and as a character actor. In other words, it’s past time for him to be the star of a vehicle which both lives up to his talents and is worthy of them.  Elijah Bynum’s Magazine Dreams is not that project.

The film opens on Majors’ character, Killian Maddox, backlit by golden stage lights, flexing his muscles in slow motion, accompanied by the score’s mournful decrescendo. Once this daydreamy intro evaporates, we meet the real Killian, an avid bodybuilder who wants “to be on one of those magazines one day.” He regularly attends bodybuilding competitions and spends his days working shifts at the grocery store, exercising, consuming calories to keep up his physique, and taking care of his invalid grandfather, William (Harrison Page).  That’s not to mention the frequent letters he writes to legendary bodybuilder Brad Vanderhorn (Mike O’ Hearn, who can also be seen in another Sundance entry this year, Divinity), whom he confides in and aspires to be. Killian also struggles with appears to be paranoid schizophrenia, seeing a court-mandated therapist for his anger as well as hallucinations and grandiose delusions. He disregards the advice of this therapist and other medical professionals who warn him that he’s pushing himself too hard, that his monomania is killing him.  The rest of the film is essentially an ongoing battle between Killian and his demons.

This is an impressively calibrated, intensely physical performance.  Like his character, Majors ate 6,000 calories a day to bulk up, and it shows. If Majors ever made the tragic decision to retire from acting, bodybuilding is clearly his backup career.  Killian is a scary character, a live wire that can explode at any moment (and often does), threatening to split people’s skulls open and drink their brains like soup. Even when the script fails him, Majors communicates this through his expressive body language—coiling his large muscles when he’s tense, literally towering over his scene partner to express dominance, and so on. This is a man barely keeping it together, and Majors plays it beautifully. He carries the movie. He -is- the movie.  And then the plot takes a left turn and completely sours everything that came before.

Up until the last third of the movie, it seems like Bynum is building up to some grand statement.  It’s unclear exactly why Killian is the way he is.  There are offhand references to a tragic childhood, and the motifs of self-image, legacy, the American Dream, toxic masculinity, and race all make brief appearances.  But before this intense character study can coalesce into something truly wonderful (beyond the lead’s instantly iconic performance), Bynum throws everything we know about the character out the window.  Suffice it to say, Killian makes a decision that is entirely out of keeping with his character, that then defines the rest of the movie.  Think back to Edward Norton’s Down In The Valley and you’ll have an idea.

One generous interpretation of Bynum’s 11th hour plot turn is that he intends this to be a referendum on the relationship between gun violence and mental health.  Put simply, it is a dangerously facile, lazy, and insulting take, one which completely cheapens the character and the time we’ve invested in him. Then, in its final scenes, the movie abruptly course corrects.  But because there was no resolution to the plot thread from the first two acts, it’s unclear how the audience is supposed to feel, let alone whether we’re supposed to care.  Bynum has just asked us to spend half an hour with a character we don’t know, in a movie we don’t recognize.

It’s a shame to see a talent like Majors’ wasted on a director that lacks confidence as a storyteller.  Perhaps Bynum felt emboldened by the casting, hoping audiences would be distracted and forgive his screenwriting indiscretions.  Or even worse, maybe he regards this film as a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.  Either way, this is an exceedingly difficult film to recommend.  It squanders not only its lead but its effective supporting cast, particularly Haley Bennett as a coworker who is initially intrigued and then horrified by Killian. Also wasted is the gorgeous cinematography, with most scenes hued in golden or bluish tones.  If you want to watch a movie that makes you angry, watch this.  If you want to watch a movie that makes you angry but at least has a discernible message, watch Funny Games. In the meantime, we’re all patiently waiting for that truly perfect, incandescent Jonathan Majors vehicle.