Jerry Maguire (1996) Review

 

Jerry Maguire (1996)

Jerry Maguire follows sports agent Jerry Maguire, who after getting fired from his job, creates a new management firm with single mother Dorothy. They, however, begin to fall in love as they struggle to make their business work with their sole client. 

There’s two very distinct sections to this movie that I will classify as life before Dorothy and life with Dorothy. For Jerry, he’s a guy barely hanging on by a thread as is..and then he gets fired. The next half of the movie is a Tom Cruise impressionists wet dream because it’s chocked full of crazy rambling, wild finger pointing, and those cold dead eyes with a gleaming smile, all while Cruise is bursting at the seams a thousand miles per hour. It’s hammed up so much that even Pacino and Cage would be taken aback at the nonsensical oddity of his actions. And so, aside from a few outbursts, that’s why I really admire the second half—life with Dorothy. She centers him, gives him peace, and gives him a love, and a child, that he frankly doesn’t deserve. She’s looking for love and he’s looking for loyalty, something that becomes apparent in their rushed marriage. 

There’s a deeper subtext to this movie—love, to varying degrees. What can love do for you?For a struggling football player? For the child of a single mother? For a washed up sports agent? It makes the good moments special and the tough moments easier to bear because you aren’t doing it alone, which is how Jerry has and always will do it, until Dorothy. Ray is a binding figure for them but she is the one he knows he needs, just doesn’t know how to say it. 

We get a solid cast, featuring Jonathan Lipnicki, Cuba Gooding Jr., Renée Zellweger, and Tom Cruise. I absolutely love Zellweger in this and the subtle inflections she brings that balance out Cruise’s zaniness. Gooding Jr. is also terrific and I love how he, and his wife, are a vessel for showing Jerry the love he is missing all throughout. 

Jerry Maguire, directed by Cameron Crowe, is, on the surface, your classic, cheesy 90s rom-com sprinkled with sports elements to give it a certain flair for the dramatic. Upon further inspection however, it’s a deep character study on loneliness and how with the right person, even a man destined for a life of solitude can find love where he least expects it.

7.9/10