Formulaic, but one of the best of its genre.

Rating: Null/10 (14 March 2003)

The first time I saw Jerry Maguire several years ago, I thought it was a film about sports and agents. When I re-watched it this week on DVD loaned from my local county library, I realized that it is really a story about people getting grips on who they are, and what really matters in life. Tom Cruise is always a very dependable actor, much like Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, and Patrick Swayze, but never 'great.' In this film, Renee Zellweger is great, giving us another glimpse, after "Whole Wide World", of how good she really is. And Cuba Gooding Jr., as the spoiled wide receiver, is 'great.' They are the two who lift 'Jerry Maguire' above the ordinary.
Funny moment, for me, was about half-way when she and he are going to dinner together the first time, he is in the street in his shoes with lifts, while she comes walking out into the street carrying her high heel shoes, obviously to make sure Renee didn't look taller than Tom, even though she is only 5'-5".
some SPOILERS - One way this film breaks from most formula love stories is they get married just past the middle of the movie, instead of falling in love right at the end. This early marriage sets up conflicts which follow, including whether he really married her for love, which is the only way she can accept him, or if he simply felt sorry for her and her small son. This is resolved near the end when he comes back after a road trip, into the ongoing "divorcee meetings" her sister has, looking for his wife. As he begins to tell her, tearfully, how he misses his wife, she soon says her famous line, "Shut up, just shut up. You had me at 'hello.'"