Jerry Maguire
★★★★★
I've always herald Jerry Maguire as one of my favorite films. It's a movie that perfectly fits my personality. It's a comedy, drama, romance and sports film all wrapped up into one. Plus, as a huge Dallas Cowboys fan, it doesn't hurt that one of their best teams is featured throughout.
Director and writer Cameron Crowe has an uncanny knack for showcasing characters that are bigger than life, but seem relatable. I completely buy into the fact that this once superstar of sports agents is willing to live in the suburbs as a new stepdad. It's hard to imagine anyone else but Tom Cruise playing this role. Crowe does an amazing job of taking our preconceived notions of Cruise as a person and combines it with the character's crisis of conscious to make a solid connection between the audience and the story.
I think everyone knows someone like Jerry Maguire. "Great at friendship. Bad with intimacy." Even if you don't know someone like him, everyone can relate to the struggle of balancing personal gain with unselfishness. Maguire's relationship with Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger) on the surface seems convenient at best, but Crowe brilliantly uses the MacGuffin of this film (Maguire's "mission statement") as the crux of everything that happens between them. Dorothy is one of the few people to see what's at the core of Maguire and sees his potential, if only he doesn't get in his own way. This movie is also a celebration of friendship and through Maguire's relationship with his sole client, Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.), Crowe shows how meaningful partnerships brings out the best in people. Cruise and Gooding Jr. play wonderfully off of each other and they have to be one of the most memorable odd couples in modern film. When these two opposite personalities decide to work together in trust, the end result is undoubtedly corny, but emotionally effective.
I love the pace and the cadence to this story. Crowe has always known how to use music to punctuate key moments in his scenes and they blend in perfectly to this narrative. You also can't discount how funny this movie is. It spurned quotes that are still used today, but it all seems relevant and fresh. Because it's been a couple of years since I have revisited this movie, I was afraid that it wouldn't hold up. Thankfully, it was quite the opposite. It spoke to me at an even greater level. As I get older, the more and more I see the fragility of every day life. And this movie reminds you that if you don't have anyone to share the successes and failures with, it's all meaningless.
