Tobey Maguire’s quiet delivery and wide-eyed earnestness make small changes in expression count. We value him most when a director lets unease develop slowly; simply turning the nice young man nasty soon becomes a limited trick.
Fi1m perspective
In The Good German (2006), Tobey Maguire’s Tully hits people with a cheerfulness that his boyish face makes harder to take. We were unsettled by how little effort the nastiness seems to cost him. Steven Soderbergh uses the contrast to put behaviour into his studio-style thriller that the old films would have kept out. The first shock works; the repeated shocks become a habit. Maguire is effective casting in a film we cannot recommend, but Tully also shows how quickly playing against an established image can become predictable.
Ang Lee makes better use of his quietness in The Ice Storm (1997), where Maguire plays Paul Hood. His narration helps hold the ensemble drama together, while his quiet observation fits a film about people making one another uncomfortable. Alongside Christina Ricci, Elijah Wood and Adam Hann-Byrd, he keeps the younger characters from looking blameless simply because the adults are behaving badly. The weather symbolism is overworked; the performances are much harder to fault. It is the more rewarding film, and Maguire contributes without needing to dominate it.
The early run of sensitive young men, including Pleasantville (1998), did risk making his responses too familiar. Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002) brought international recognition as Peter Parker, followed by sequels in 2004 and 2007. Those films made his earnestness widely familiar, which gave the casting of Tully its initial force. Brothers (2009), with its emphasis on psychological strain, offered another use for his understated delivery and small changes of expression. Such parts give him something specific to convey through stillness.
His later work also includes the quieter observation of Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby (2013). We find that aspect of Maguire more promising than another demonstration that an apparently harmless man can be unpleasant. Soderbergh gets an immediate jolt from the contrast in The Good German, but Lee finds a place for Maguire among people whose behaviour cannot be judged by their faces. Start with The Ice Storm, where he has other actors to work with and no obligation to keep surprising us.
Biography
Tobey Maguire is an American actor and film producer. Born Tobias Vincent Maguire on 27 June 1975 in Santa Monica, California, he began his career in supporting roles in films and television before gaining international recognition for his portrayal of Peter Parker / Spider-Man in Sam Raimi's 2002 film Spider-Man.
Maguire reprised the role in Spider-Man 2 (2004) and Spider-Man 3 (2007), and returned to it in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). He appeared as Tully in The Good German (2006) and received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama for his performance in Brothers (2009). Other notable roles include those in Seabiscuit (2003) and The Great Gatsby (2013).
Maguire has also worked as a producer on films including 25th Hour (2002) and Seabiscuit (2003). He established the production company Material Pictures in 2012.
