Jerry Maguire 20th anniversary: Read all 25 pages of Jerry's mission statement
It's a little bit more in depth than, "Show me the money!"
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Your support makes all the difference."Show me the money!" An iconic statement, made so because its brevity imparts one of the essential drives of the modern psyche.
But Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise)'s mission statement expands far beyond those words; though they are hidden within the document we see him working on over the opening credits as an attempted cure for his personal crisis; pulling an all-nighter typing away on his laptop, cooped up in his hotel room at a sports agent conference in Miami to produce his own masterpiece, entitled "The Things We Think And Do Not Say".
"I began writing what they call a mission statement. Not a memo, a mission statement," the voiceover declares. "You know, a suggestion for the future of our company. A night like this doesn't come along very often; I seized it. What started out as one page, became twenty-five... I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, and I'm not even a writer."
It's in this statement Maguire comes to the realisation that the future of the company lies in having fewer clients on the roster, with more personalised attention; "I have the distinct feeling that what I have written is 'touchy feely'," Maguire concludes. "I don’t care. I have lost the ability to bullsh*t."
For the 20th anniversary of the film's release, director Cameron Crowe has revealed that he did, in fact, write all 25 pages of said mission statement; with his official website publishing all 5,000 words of the document for fans to peruse.
More a stream of consciousness than a tightly worded proposal, the piece often delves into personal reflection; relating the experiences of Maguire's father, the nature of the industry, offering random travel tips, and even pausing to listen to a couple have sex in the room next door.
You can read the whole thing here.
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