Jerry Maguire
Cameron Crowe’s “Jerry Maguire” is about a man at a moment of reckoning with himself. He stops being able to bullshit himself, and starts being honest about himself. That he slides back into his natural zone is reflective of how difficult it is for people to change. Because change is fucking terrifying, and realizing you need to is like jumping off a cliff without a rope to catch you. It is one of the most honest films about human nature I think anyone has ever made.
Most of us, if not all of us, have come to a moment where, we looked at our life, and something just didn’t sit right. Whether it was in reference to our career, a relationship, or ourselves, we all come to a point where change needs to happen. I’ve been grappling with this for over a decade, with my health, my mind, my heart, and my career, and sometimes, those were all intertwined. The anxiety is overpowering, in those moments, and you lose your sense of self, whether you realize it immediately or not. It’s usually a slow awareness, but sometimes, it takes someone calling us on our bullshit to put it in focus. For Jerry Maguire, it’s the son of a hockey player on his fourth concussion. But that was the tipping point at the end of a slow realization period for Jerry, which leads him to his revelation, a mission statement that will change his life forever.
Jerry Maguire, the character, does not work without Tom Cruise playing him. It’s weird to think Tom Hanks was on the radar to play this role, and while he would have done a fine job, I don’t think he could have sold both Jerry’s ruthless agent mode, or his emotional breakdown, quite as well as Cruise does in this film. You need someone with megawatt charisma, but also capable of playing exasperation to the point of dejection, and this is something Cruise has fully within his wheelhouse as an actor, and this was one of the first times he really got to explore it. (His next films, “Eyes Wide Shut” and “Magnolia,” pushed him further down this road.) The opening montage where Jerry lets us into his world of high pressure deals, and dealing with clients focused more on the money than the game they’re playing, and the people around them, comes alive in the narration Cruise gives us, and the physical acting he does. We see the anxiety of what has bothered him on his face, we see it fade away as he gets more comfortable with what he’s saying in that mission statement, and then, the anxiety kicks back in after he’s handed it out.
Crowe’s storytelling voice is precise in each scene of this film. This is especially true with the big sequences. “Jerry Maguire” doesn’t have set pieces like we think of them, but it does have scenes that operate as sequences of action and suspense. Take the scene after Jerry is fired, and he and Bob Sugar (Jay Mohr) both get on the phone to try and keep Jerry’s clients. We can figure out that Jerry will lose, and it’s inevitable that he will once he gets on the phone with Rod Tidwell, the hot-shot wide receiver played by Cuba Gooding Jr. in his Oscar-winning performance, but the breathless nature of the scene is expertly laid out in the way Crowe writes it, even finding room for humor like the client who starts crying about losing Jerry, then turns on a dime when another call comes in, only to find it’s still Jerry. But once the scene focuses in on Jerry and Tidwell, Crowe’s camera gives us a ticking clock in the form of calls on hold on Jerry’s phone. Eventually, after Tidwell has ensured Jerry’s loyalty in the “Show me the money!” sequence, they are down to zero. Of course he’s not going to hold on to #1 pick Cushman, even if the film makes us think he will. This is about breaking Jerry down to his core, taking him to rock bottom, and making him realize the essence of what matters in his life. Giving him a chance to figure out how to LIVE that mission statement.
It’s easy to look at scenes like the “Show me the money” scene, the final football game, and think Gooding Jr. won his Oscar just for the show of his role. He’s actually the key to the whole film. He and Jerry becoming friends, their fates being joined at the hip, is vital- if one fails, they both fail. Tidwell has a lot of bombast and arrogance, but watching him with Marcee (the great Regina King), with his family, and even with Jerry, there’s something to him, a love for life, that is missing in his play. Tidwell being his only client is important for Jerry professionally, because he’s a big test of that mission statement- which called for more personal interaction with clients, helping them find that love of the game that gets lost in big money (something Tidwell wants, but is not getting because he doesn’t show that passion on the field)- but he’s also a key to Jerry’s growth. Because of that love he has for Marcee and his family, it’s up to Rod to be Jerry’s spiritual guide as he strips away the artifice he used to live his life surrounded by- including the former athlete fiancee (Kelly Preston) and “friends” who would just assume let Jerry sink on his own than throw him a life vest- and gets involved in one of the scariest things life can throw such a person, their first attempt at a real emotional relationship with another person.
Dorothy Boyd is another character whose depth, I think, gets forgotten when it comes to this film. Renee Zellweger is one of those actresses whose talents seemed to be forgotten, and while I don’t think she deserved a second Oscar for her recent performance in “Judy,” it doesn’t surprise me that she has two Oscars. Nor should it surprise you. Dorothy is taking the biggest chances of anyone in the movie in leaving SMI to follow Jerry; I think she is enamored with the idea of Jerry after she reads that mission statement, without thinking of the reality of him at this moment in his life. As Laurel, her sister (the fantastic Bonnie Hunt), says, “She has given up the right to be frivolous,” and that’s because of her son, Ray (Jonathan Lipnicki). When we first meet her, Ray is the center of her life, and he still is the deeper she gets into life with Jerry, but at a certain point, her mothering of Ray takes a backseat to being a shoulder to lean on for Jerry. Her love for him is obvious, and she can’t help but give in to those desires because she sees the person he can be, rather than the person he is. She also knows when she has to take action, though, when it doesn’t seem to be working the way she hoped it would. The first time (when Dorothy is going to take a job in San Diego that will offer stability for her and Ray), Jerry comes back with “let’s get married,” because he cannot live without them; not because of love, but because of his insecurity of being alone. (One little detail I noticed in my latest rewatch- when we hear the minister ask the question of both Jerry and Dorothy during the ceremony, and the camera is focused on Ray, we don’t actually hear either one say, “I do.” That just goes to emphasize what this marriage feels like, in the moment.) The second time (when Dorothy tells him that they should look at this next road trip as a “break,” because she sees the gulf in their feelings towards one another), Jerry comes in, and he “had her at hello,” because he realized how much Dorothy mattered to him when he couldn’t celebrate the big night Rod had with her. We feel he is finally on the same page with her, and it’s as emotional a moment as either actor has played on screen. Like Rod, Dorothy is a check for Jerry, but it’s the ways she has to check herself throughout the film that really stand out.
As I’ve gotten older, movies like “Jerry Maguire” really come to mean a great deal to me personally. It’s because they deal with a spiritual struggle rather than a physical one. This is an underdog movie, and if you know me, you know that I have a particular weakness for such movies, especially when it comes to sports. One of the things that stands out about “Jerry Maguire,” like Bennett Miller’s “Moneyball” in 2011, is how it takes a less-than-glamorous part of sports (being an agent) and builds a substantial stories of growth out of a change in thinking about how that should operate, how to value people, and how to come out more empathetic towards others on the other side. It’s a story type I’ve really come to appreciate, and one I find myself going back to, time and again, as the years go on.
