On Ethics, Money and the Ending of ‘Maguire’

Like most film critics in recent weeks, Kenneth Turan lauds Cameron Crowe’s box-office hit “Jerry Maguire” for its remarkable cast and for being “fresh and refreshing due to Crowe’s outstanding script” (Calendar, Dec. 13).

But, although the film’s cast gives undeniably memorable performances, “Jerry Maguire” is far from fresh and refreshing in one important respect: In the end, it shows us only the money. It is precisely the film’s gilded ending that ultimately undermines what is otherwise a truly outstanding script.

First, a warning: If you haven’t seen “Jerry Maguire” and don’t want to know how the story develops, don’t read on.

For those who have seen it, it’s important to keep in mind that “Jerry Maguire” is more than a mere “romantic comedy,” as it has been widely billed. In its opening scenes, the title character--a greedy, egotistical and emotionally shallow sports agent, embodied deftly by Tom Cruise--has an abrupt crisis of conscience and, in an all-night writing frenzy, composes a visionary and morally cathartic “mission statement.” From this, it is clear the film wants to be taken seriously as a morality play. And so I took it, and with great admiration--until the movie’s final feel-good sequence.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m a romantic, and I have nothing against happy, idealistic endings. And who couldn’t use a healthy dose of cinematic happiness and idealism to ward off our world’s cynical and pessimistic tendencies?

Problem is, “Jerry Maguire’s” ending inspires with neither true happiness nor idealism. Instead of offering a refreshing and sobering resolution to Maguire’s personal and moral struggles, the film ends up merely perpetuating one of Hollywood’s most beguiling and destructive myths: that the road to happiness and personal fulfillment is paved with money.

And that’s why we should actually pity poor Dorothy (Renee Zellweger), Maguire’s helpmate. I predict that within six months, Jerry and Dorothy would at best be in serious marital counseling and at worst would be unhappily divorced.

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Why the bleak prophecy? Because “Jerry Maguire” offers no compelling reasons to believe that, by movie’s end, Maguire is still anything but “great at friendship, bad at intimacy,” not to mention greedy, egotistical and emotionally shallow. This isn’t to say that Maguire doesn’t experience some growth, but we’re given no convincing evidence that he has undergone any meaningful and enduring change of character. Despite a few feeble attempts to live up to the ideals of his much-vaunted “mission statement,” he constantly reveals a winning-is-everything, money-hungry character right to the last frame. Even in the film’s feel-good ending.

Think about it: How confident can Dorothy be in Maguire’s abrupt change of heart and the depth of his commitment knowing that he came running back to her only after--and immediately after--realizing that he and his football player client would very soon be rolling in big-time money? Isn’t it more than a little ironic that the recovering greedaholic Maguire is driven back to Dorothy on the wings of million-dollar emotion? And that even before telling her that he loves her and can’t live without her, he proclaims he had a very big day at the office? Can the idealistic Dorothy, who repeatedly says that what she loves best about Maguire is the values he expressed in his mission statement, really trust the words of a man who has returned to her intoxicated by money that from the movie’s onset has plagued his mind and soul?

To the extent we are being asked to take “Jerry Maguire’s” moral dimension seriously, allowing the win-at-all-costs Maguire in the end to have his cake and eat it too takes away from the film. To argue that a more morally realistic and sobering ending would have been the film’s kiss of death at the box office--i.e., that audiences would demand a happy ending in which his client got his lucrative contract--is an insult not only to audiences but also to the creativity and intelligence of talented script writers everywhere, including Crowe.

“Jerry Maguire” shows us the money, all right. But by doing so, it dilutes its moral imperative and falls short of being a truly great movie.