10/15/19 - The Art of Self-Defense - 7-/10

Mumblecore-esque Buzzard and meets Fight Club, with a lite Napoleon Dynamite sauce, but the meal is tastier than its disparate ingredients. A diatribe about the unsavory nature of toxic masculinity, told in a quirk-filled humorous way. It is a good time, but there is a Nightcrawler darkness clutching the underbelly. It is vicious despite having a sweet heart, surrounded by sexism and homophobia eroticism. The movie is a straight laced trip down the dark hallways of humor and foot punches.

This film’s idiosyncrasies are so delightfully fun and endearing. There is a seriousness to this world and its inhabitants that flips a mental switch. An earnest and oddly alien interaction persists within each meeting, dialogue, and personal expression. Elements are ramped up to 11, but without the straight man-ness of the film’s construction, I don't think it would work nearly as well as it does.

Jesse Eisenberg feels necessary to make this film. His presence, physicality, ability, and tone just click. Without his comedic empathy, it might hot have arrived a destination a winking and chuckling as it does, but gone off-road down the truck nuts path of merciless machismo and non-self awareness. Thankfully, it did not and the experience turned out to be a fun one.