Jerry Maguire (dir. Cameron Crowe, 1996) - Review

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Jerry Maguire is best remembered today for one line: show me the money. Ironic but also apt for a movie about rejecting consumerism, which went on to land the ninth biggest gross of 1996. The entanglement of two kinds of fulfilment- material and spiritual- is at the heart of an expertly balanced fairytale, centring Tom Cruise as a different kind of American hero: one who has to prove himself not on the battlefield but in the office.

Writer-director Cameron Crowe made an ambitious decision in reopening the dried-out vein of the American Dream, a narrative bludgeoned nearly to death in films of the 80s and 90s. Jerry Maguire (Cruise) is a sports agent who has it all- high-powered career, ample cash, freaky fiancé- but faces a moral crisis over becoming "just another shark in a suit". After failing to rally an insurrection at his agency, Jerry loses everything, except former colleague Dorothy (Renee Zellweger) and one egomaniacal client, Rod (Cuba Gooding Jr). With his materialistic identity destroyed, Jerry sets off in search of 'real' success- and a meaning to his life.

Crowe's masterstroke is in disguising both these big questions, and the absurdly simple answers it offers, in a dense film mixing flashiness and emotional depth. As indicated by the title, this is a deeply narcissistic movie, despite its moralistic overtones; and it welcomes the viewer into sharing that narcissism. Jerry Maguire starts with a shot of the globe: "the blue marble as seen from space. We hear the calm voice of Jerry Maguire talking just to us". The opening monologue, as the camera zooms across space and time, honing in on various teenage athletes who will be Jerry's future cash cows, neatly sets up this approach.

JERRY'S VOICE

Alright so this is the world and there are five billion people on it. When I was a kid there were three. It' s hard to keep up.

AMERICA FROM SPACE

(The great continent through mist and swirling skies. Satellites and other pieces of skycasting equipment float by.)

JERRY'S VOICE

That's better. That's America. See, America still sets the tone for the world...

By the late 90's, these two issues - the overwhelming size and speed of the modern world, and America's changing role in it- had been milked to death in films from Valley of the Dolls to Blue Velvet. They would receive an even darker (and more lucrative) treatment in the crop of edgelord classics like Fight Club and American Psycho that emerged in the next few years. But Jerry Maguire suggests a simpler response to the despair of globalisation: simply ignore it.

The rich, detailed array of characters and scenarios in Jerry Maguire really serve to highlight one thing, or rather one person. As the opening sequence neatly demonstrates, the utter insignificance of one man in the vast, unknowable world translates into his total significance in his own head.

Jerry is confronted by a raft of problems which he can never hope to understand: Dorothy's life as a single mother with a stupidly adorable son (Jonathan Lipnicki), Rod's struggles as a black professional athlete, even the corporate ambitions of his ruthless ex-fiancé (Kelly Preston). All of these experiences are overwhelmingly complex; for both Jerry and the audience, they pack a juicy emotional hit without offering a clear solution. As Jerry puts it in the movie’s other most quoted line, Rod and the rest of the world are simply there to “help me help you”. Maguire’s two pillars of money and altruism- two ways to feel good about yourself, and only yourself- have developed into the backbone of America’s wellness industry.

And so the solution is to retreat into Jerry's head. Slyly reviving the discredited nuclear family narrative, Crowe turns all the resources of his richly built world to building Jerry a new identity, as a husband and a father. As Jerry's mentor tells the camera: "I don't have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I've failed as much as I've succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of success." A nice kind of success for those who can convince themselves to believe in it.