It’s a cautionary tale. Certainly before we have seen actors skirt awards recognition, only to have their hopes dashed when it turns out they have a deep dark horrible secret. Kevin Spacey was edited out of All The Money in The World, and replaced by Christopher Plummer, who went on to get an Oscar nomination. Shia labeouf watched his pieces Of A Woman co-star Vanessa Kirby land a nomination, but his chances fell off the map. I should say, Spacey has since been cleared of all charges, and labeouf is still working.But the awards chance came and went. That’s the take away, because I fully believe this is an Oscar caliber performance from Jonathan majors. i don’t know if he could have won, but nominated? yes. it’s the best performance of his career, and he’s already received consistent praise.

Majors unearths the darkness in Cillian, an aspiring bodybuilder who lacks the ability to figure out that he’s never going to have the muscle mass required to move into the professional world of body building. still, he’s obsessed with the sport, knows and idolizes the big names, and religiously sticks to his workout regimen. He’s also deeply troubled and fractured, and seems to exist outside of reality, incapable of the same human connection others experience, or the self awareness that he might be his own problem.

It’s a tragic story, and because Cillian walks this fine line of going too far, I was reminded of films like Taxi Driver and raging Bull, like this is 2025’s version of that, but with the sheen of Incel, the internet, and hanging out too much by yourself in a garage. While Cillian seems mostly to be a nice guy, not only does the world repeatedly reject him, but he seems to not be able to grasp fully why. He’s not able to change or adapt as a result, coming across as a stunted man child who only has a concept of what adulting looks like. he’ll take a girl out, and order his typical insane amount of food, instead of having the internal voice that tells him to play it like a typical date. Even this date he’s been looking forward to is co-opted by his persistence to achieve an unattainable goal. eventually, after he has failed enough, and the world has beaten him down (literally), we start to see the frayed soul of Cillian, and the danger starts to rise to the top. Now he’s unpredictable, and the film could go anywhere.

This is the best I’ve ever seen majors, and while I understand many don’t want to watch anything with him in it, this film was completed and screening at Sundance prior to his legal battle. It just got delayed for two years. So, that means all the other artists, those whose names aren’t Jonathan Majors, and make you sit there for 5-7 minutes at the end of the movie, deserve to not have their work torpedoed. It isn’t even so much that they knew what they were working with, and did it anyway, but it was shot before any of that, and has suffered for something completely unrelated to this film.

Majors likely has a lot of work to do on himself, but the greatest disservice he did to himself was allowing his behavior to cost his strongest performance any chance at awards consideration. He put in the work, but ultimately no one cares. Perhaps fifty years from now, when the scandal is a footnote, gen Whatever will discover this film and give it new life.

the audio description here was pretty solid, i just question the use of “tighty whities” in place of briefs. It is slang, and I normally appreciate an audio description complimenting a films tone, or meeting the target demo (like, kids or teens) by using their language. here, Cillian doesn’t make a big deal about calling his underwear something specific, so using slang here is a little like using “wife beater’ for an under shirt. We know what kind of shirt that is, but the slang term is definitely not the professional first choice. Just some food for thought.

Fresh: Final grade: 8.4/10