Jerry Maguire: Show me the appeal!

I have felt the pressure from the world to see this film since it was released in, what? 1996? Besides Cuba Gooding Jr. quoting himself when he was on Saturday Night Live, the local radio DJ going on and on about the line "You had me at hello" being one of the greatest romantic-comedy lines in history, and a continued sense that this movie was central to American culture, I had friends, family members, and girlfriends saying how great the film was. I had scenes being recreated for me by said girlfriend. I felt like I was missing something central. Something amazing. So, today, I took advantage of Netlfix's generous instant-viewing feature, and responded to the general familiarity everyone around me seems to have with this nineties classic. And I couldn't fucking stand it.

Now, certainly we all have that anti-popularity circuit in our brains that enjoys disliking the things that the world goes nuts over. Simply because of it's popularity, we approach bands and shows and films with suspicion. Or we don't approach them at all. I shook my head through the entirety of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon because of my sense that country was really hung up on it. Or, worse, a small section of the film-going public that adored dumb action, and liked to think of themselves as clever, thinking audience members, and "finally, here's a movie as smart as I am!". Yes, I certainly have to regularly fight the chip that sits plumply on my shoulder as I try not to judge a cultural movement. I mean, surely it's not the thing we disapprove of, it's the response to the thing. We must constitute ourselves to enter into something with all that behind us. We must chill the fuck out.

And I did, going into Jerry Maguire. I went in just interested to see what all the whatever was about. I knew I liked Cameron Crowe (I need to review Say Anything), and--say what you want--Renée Zellweger is a total cutie! And I can't escape those memories of my sister and ex-girlfriend telling me to see the film. Hell, even my own nerdy grumpiness allows for the occasional rom-com, and the mid-nineties has the treacly-est of them all! I was in the mood to like this movie! I wanted to tear up at "you had me at hello"! So what went wrong?

To start with, the script isn't that strong. This movie is about a somewhat high-concept character going through a semi-complicated story-arc. The world of sports superstar's agents is a fairly unknown one, and the process of breaking down, intellectually and emotionally, to change your view of the universe is a complicated this to understand, let alone show. Cameron Crowe needed to write a smart script with a lot of subtle, realistic details. And I saw none of that. Everyone says big broad things to each other, in big broad pop-corn eating major star movie ways. Most of the dialogue was intended to impress the audience with it's bounce and zing. It all tried to be really cool. And in the process, it left out what the story was trying to do: explore the issues of this man, and the people around him. Most of the time I just felt confused. I mean, there are three main characters, and two secondary characters, and they all want a lot. This film is about people really wanting things, and hitting their heads against the wall they don't quite get them. These people are desperate for various forms of happiness, but for some reason I couldn't hear what they were actually saying. And I'm not convinced they were saying anything.

Lots of films are constructed this way: people say ridiculous things to each other in an escalating game of "surprise the audience". How else to connect with people when the scene itself is boring? Then, after one person acts crazy, the other person smiles and shakes their head, and then we smash-cut to a montage. Often, this takes the form of a commercial airliner taking off, while a recording of a voice mail plays, all set to a Rolling Stones song. It's generic American movie making. And I guess I had Crowe pegged as a better writer/director than that.

Second, this confusing mish-mash of emotions in every direction is not in any way helped by the manic Tom Cruise. He grins both when he's happy and when he's frustrated. And when he's scared and when he's sad. He grins when he wins and grins when he loses. Then he holds his head in his hands when something else is wrong. Or is it. Maybe he's just tired cause this film is so exhausting. As someone lost as to what just happened, or where this movie is heading, watching for clues in Tom's dizzying performance did not help. The thing is, Tom Cruise can deliver an appropriate performance in films like Magnolia, when every subtle detail is significant, but in Jerry Maguire, where the action is broad and, ultimately unimportant, Cruise just compounds the assemblage into a series of mis-cues. It's like in kindergarten when you were fingerpainting, and you added every color to one spot, and it became a sullen, poopy brown.

I think all of this has to do with what I was trying to pin-point back there: the generic American film. We have been instilled with certain cues in film, that lead us to expect certain things. There's a rhythm to major movies that's very shallow and shmoozy. Much like Tom Cruise. It's annoying to witness, but sometimes, you can't help but be in the mood for it. Like watching TGIF. Sometimes, you just aren't up to thinking about anything. Like I said, I never associated Cameron Crowe with that kind of irrelevance. I think he tries to rise above that, but he goes about it the wrong way. Instead of focusing on how to make real choices with his characters, he just piles on more emoting for them to do, and no one listens to one another. It's as if each character is in their own little film, and they have nothing to do with the actual movie being made. This could be an interesting choice, but even at this, Crowe won't commit, and the bland movie rhythms maintain.

There was one moment I can recall really appreciating in Jerry Maguire: near the beginning, when Jerry is fired. He looks around the restaurant for a moment, and we hear snippets of fellow diners. We hear a group singing "Happy Birthday", and another couple chatting and clinking their glasses. Then Jerry looks down and the camera slowly zooms in on a glass of ice water, and we actually hear the ice cracking as it warms. That moment took me there. That moment was real, and it said so much about how we find ourselves, in the most significant moments, focusing on the most trivial details. Or rather, how trivial details become as central as anything else. That's the kind of detail I wanted from what could have been a life-changing film. Instead I was just annoyed. I guess the girlfriends, sisters, and radio DJ's were wrong. I'm glad to say I can no longer wonder if I should see this negligible distraction.