Jerry Maguire

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Jerry Maguire
Directed by Cameron Crowe
Produced by James L. Brooks
Cameron Crowe
Laurence Mark
Richard Sakai
Written by Cameron Crowe
Starring Tom Cruise
Renée Zellweger
Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Bonnie Hunt
Regina King
Kelly Preston
Jonathan Lipnicki
Jay Mohr
Jerry O'Connell
Editing by Joe Hutshing
Distributed by TriStar Pictures
Release date(s) December 13, 1996
Running time 139 min.
Language English
Budget $50,000,000
IMDb profile

Jerry Maguire is a 1996 American comedy-drama film starring Tom Cruise, Cuba Gooding, Jr., and Renée Zellweger. The role played by Renée Zellweger was originally offered to Jennifer Lopez. It was written and directed by Cameron Crowe.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise) is a sports agent working for Sports Management International (SMI). After suffering a nervous breakdown as a result of stress and a guilty conscience, he writes a mission statement about perceived dishonesty in the sports management business and how he believes that it should be operated. His fellow employees are touched by his honesty and greet him with applause the next business day but the company management orders Maguire fired for his actions.

The management sends Bob Sugar (Jay Mohr), Maguire's protégé, to fire Maguire. Jerry and Bob then proceed to call all of their existing clients to try to convince them to not hire the services of the other. Jerry gets through to Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding, Jr.), one of his clients who is disgruntled by his contract that he believes to be far inferior than that of his teammates. Tidwell tests Jerry's resolve through a very long telephone conversation, which culminates in the famed "Show Me the Money!" telephone yelling match between Rod and Jerry. Meanwhile, Bob Sugar secures most of Jerry's previous clients as his own. Leaving the office, Jerry announces he will start his own sports management agency and asks if anyone is willing to join him to which only single mother Dorothy Boyd (Renée Zellweger) agrees. Boyd had previously bumped into Maguire in the airport and told him personally how inspiring she found his "memo". As the two of them attempt to operate a sports agency together, Jerry becomes closer to her young son, Ray, and eventually starts a relationship with Dorothy.

Cruise as Jerry Maguire
Cruise as Jerry Maguire

Jerry concentrates all his efforts on Rod, his only client, who turns out to be a very difficult client to satisfy. Over the next several months, the two direct harsh criticism towards each other with Tidwell claiming that Jerry is not trying hard enough to get him a contract while Jerry claims that Tidwell is not proving himself to deserve the money for which he asks. In the process of trying to succeed financially in his new enterprise, Jerry dumps his fiancee, Avery (Kelly Preston), and enters into a marriage of convenience with Dorothy. She later offers to let Jerry out of the marriage to relieve him of the stress of worrying about a wife with a son and concentrate only on his business.

After a Cardinals game in which Tidwell played well and almost received a serious injury, Jerry and Rod get renewed confidence for a lucrative contract for Rod. After months of harsh words and criticism directed towards one another, the two embrace in front of other athletes and sports agents and show how their relationship has progressed from a strictly business one to a close personal one, which was one of the points Jerry made in his mission statement. Jerry then flies back home to seek out Dorothy and tell her that he loves her and wants her in his life.

Rod Tidwell later appears on a sports show for an interview. Unbeknown to him, Jerry has secured him an $11.2 million contract with the Cardinals that will allow him to finish his pro football career in Arizona. The visibly emotional Tidwell proceeds to thank everyone who helped accomplish this success and extends warm gratitude to Jerry for his help. Jerry, who is also on the set of the show, speaks with several other pro athletes, some of whom have read his earlier mission statement and express their positive opinion of it as well as respect for the work he had done with Tidwell. The film ends with Jerry, Dorothy and Ray walking in the park and stumbling across a Little League baseball game. When the ball lands near them, Ray picks it up and throws it back onto the field; a surprised Jerry comments on his throwing arm.

[edit] Reception

Jerry Maguire remains famous due to memorable quotes, including "Show me the money!" (shouted repeatedly in a phone exchange between Rod Tidwell and Jerry Maguire), "You complete me","Help me help you", and "You had me at 'hello'" (said by Dorothy Boyd after a lengthy romantic plea by Jerry Maguire), and "Kwan" (a word used by Rod Tidwell meaning love, respect, community, and money) mentioned by Tidwell to illustrate the difference between himself and other football players. ("Other football players may have the coin, but they won't have the 'Kwan'"). These lines are largely attributed to Cameron Crowe, director and screenwriter of the movie.

The film was well received, with Cuba Gooding, Jr. winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Rod Tidwell, the Arizona Cardinals football player who sticks with Maguire. Cruise was also nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role and although Renée Zellweger missed out on a nomination for her portrayal of Dorothy Boyd, it was Zellweger's breakout role. The film itself was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, and crew members on the film were nominated for Best Screenplay and Best Film Editing awards.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Themes

The film tackles a range of themes and critiques materialism at the expense of personal relationships. The "voice of reason" throughout the film is that of Dickie Fox (Jared Jussim), Jerry Maguire's mentor, who comments at the very end of the film that, "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. I wish you my kind of success." Cameron Crowe suggests reaching out to the people around us is the key to professional as well as personal success. The famous "Show me the money!" scene, featuring Rod Tidwell demanding Jerry scream his "family motto" back to him over the phone, epitomizes the empty values of those around Jerry, yet somewhat paradoxically it is Rod who serves as a role-model for the family values and personal attention that Jerry seeks. Crowe's point is that the pursuit of financial success need not be incompatible with family values or personal relationships, simply that it should take second place to them.

[edit] Cameos

[edit] Soundtrack

As with all of Cameron Crowe's films, the soundtrack constitutes an important backdrop to the film. (Crowe was a journalist with Rolling Stone in the 1970s.) Highlights include:

"Secret Garden", originally a Springsteen track from 1995, was re-released in 1997, after its exposure in the film and on the soundtrack, and peaked at #19 on the Billboard Hot 100.

[edit] References


[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:


v • d • e
Films directed by Cameron Crowe

Say Anything (1989) • Singles (1992) • Jerry Maguire (1996) • Almost Famous (2000) • Vanilla Sky (2001) • Elizabethtown (2005)