JERRY MAGUIRE
A film review by John Schuurman
Copyright 1997 John Schuurman
Written and Directed by Cameron Crowe.
This film has a lot going for it. First, it is going to do well commercially. It has all the right stuff. For starters, it has Tom Cruise who is pretty AND he can act. (He is smart too -- look for him to direct in a couple of years.) This film is his finest achievement yet. Additionally, it is a sports movie that actually works. (Most don't -- this one does because it only incidentally includes sports.) Plus it is a delightful love story and has an adorable kid.
But then this: it is also a serious and biting expose of one of America's powerful sub-cultures. Like Robert Altman's NASHVILLE, this film swoops in on a little fragment of American life -- one that has power far beyond itself -- and lays bare its inner workings, its cynicism, its greed, and above all, its shameless exploitation of the ones about whom it purports to care the most. This movie says to our entertainment and sports crazed society, "Deceive yourselves no longer. Your cherished notion of innocuous entertainment is rubbish. This world is controlled by sharks."
NASHVILLE and JERRY MAGUIRE are also alike in that neither are content to confine their scrutiny to the sub-culture in question. Both make searing commentary on the broad stream of American culture that has made the aberrant sub-culture possible in the first place. The movies are both about the morally bereft society that has made gods (with clay feet) out of a small handful of talented but otherwise mediocre individuals.
In this regard, JERRY MAGUIRE is not nearly so cynical as NASHVILLE and that is doubtless why it will succeed commercially but also why it could be charged with naivete. Given the world of power and cut-throat dealing in human flesh that the film exposes, it is perhaps silly for writer/director Crowe to suggest that a higher and better way is possible in the sports management industry. But the whole film is built on such a premise: Although greed and exploitation have a lock on big time sports, there are rare and precious occasions when conscience awakes, truth means something, commitments are kept, and something other than power and money can win the day. It is a nice film that way. If you like following professional sports, it lets you hope some. (But watch yourself.)
The film also has a great device that runs throughout. Jerry's mentor, an aging salesman, an old warrior of the deal -- all smiles, all positive-thinking hype -- sits at his desk and gives salesmanship lessons right out of the latest self-help and motivational pap from the empowerment circuit. You think of it as a running gag until his last bit of advice: "Love your wife. Love your life. Be true. Be a good person." This last bit hijacks the movie out of the cynical and into the hopeful.
Crowe has pulled off a substantial trick here. From within a sub-culture very like the one he is examining, he has provided a vehicle that will enjoy a successful run and will also (hopefully) cause some much needed self-examination.
for other reviews by John Schuurman see: http://www.mcs.com/~wcrc/movies.html
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