It's a testament to the script by Cameron Crowe that Jerry Maguire, nominated for Best Picture of 1996, is still so memorable. Think of some of the more famous phrases from this movie: "Show me the money." "You complete me." "You had me at hello." "Did you know the human head weighs eight pounds?" Well, perhaps not the last one so much, but I bet even it brought a smile to some people's faces. Crowe manages in Jerry Maguire to make a movie about the redemption of a man's soul that avoids most of the cliches that are often associated with such subject matter. I hadn't watched this movie in at least a decade because it has gotten a bit fashionable to claim that it really isn't as good as we remember. But it is, actually, well-acted, well-written, well-directed, all high quality.
Maguire, played by Tom Cruise (who is perfect for this part), is one of the most successful sports agents around when he has a crisis of conscience and writes a late-night mission statement that suggests that his firm become more focused on the individual players rather than the money. Naturally, he is fired from his job almost immediately for saying something so heretical in the hardcore capitalist world of sports agency. He decides to form his own company with one employee, an accountant from his old firm, played by Renee Zellweger (a few years before she became so self-important and transformed herself into The Zellweger, as friends and I refer to her). He also has only one client, a football player with enormous talent and an ego to match (played with enormous vigor by Cuba Gooding Jr.). Jerry marries Zellweger's Dorothy, at first because he enjoys her company and loves her son, the adorable Jonathan Lipnicki, but soon he begins spending more time with Gooding's Rod Tidwell at his football games than with his family. He is forced, through a series of events, to confront his weaknesses, leading to one of the more romantic scenes in films from the last quarter century.
I expect many people have seen this film and remember its basic plot. You probably also recall how good the three lead players are. What you may have forgotten is the stellar work done by Bonnie Hunt as Laurel, Dorothy's sister. Hunt has always been the kind of actress who enlivens whatever movie (or television show) she's in, and she's great here. She has a deadpan delivery of some great funny lines. My favorite is the advice that she gives Dorothy before the first true date with Jerry: "Don't cry at the beginning of a date. Cry at the end, like I do." Priceless.
This is one of the best performances that Cruise has given in his up-and-down (in terms of quality, that is) career. He's not always my favorite performer--go back and watch The Last Samurai, for example--but this part seems to fit his personality well. Zellweger is also charming here, a trait she would carry on to her work in Nurse Betty but lose by the time she co-starred in Chicago. Gooding won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this film and gave one of the most exuberant acceptance speeches ever in this history of the awards; see if you can find it online and watch the pure joy that he feels at winning. I'd also single out Regina King, who is excellent as Rod's wife; she almost stole the show again in Ray, the film biography of Ray Charles, as one of Charles' back-up singers and spurned love interests. She has an intensity as an actress that is mesmerizing.
If there is any part of the movie that falls short of the standard set by the cast and the rest of the script, it's the periodic interruption of the story so that Jerry's mentor in the sports agent business can give some more of his patented advice. Much of what he says sounds like so many cliches. For example, near the end of the film, Dicky Fox says, "Hey, I don't have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I failed as much as I succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you my kind of success." Really, Dicky? Thanks. I know these moments are a commentary on the moments of the story involving Jerry, but I do think the film could have done without them and been just as successful.
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