The Art of Self-Defense (2019)

The Art of Self-Defense review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Riley Stearns’ The Art of Self-Defense makes itself boldly blunt about its targeting of toxic masculinity. Great care is placed into making sure the film isn’t just a silly comedy of one nerd going overboard with learning karate to better himself. What could’ve been a mere dopey adult take of Napoleon Dynamite instead contorts itself into a surreal suburban styling of Taxi Driver, albeit with a far more amiable ending.

The film establishes quickly that Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) is meek in its own overblown manner. His co-workers verbally harass and intimidate him, his boss forces him to stay late, and he’ll frequently get into disagreements with others at the supermarket where the calm Casey is defeated easily. To top it all off, he is beaten and mugged in the streets. Fearing for his life, Casey decides to take karate in hopes of not just learning fighting skills but becoming a “real man.”

The dynamic of desiring machismo stems from the karate dojo’s leader, known only as Sensei (Alessandro Nivola). In order to advance passed merely punching and kicking boards of wood, Sensei decides to instruct Casey on how to be a man by changing everything in his life. Adult Contemporary must be replaced with metal. His small dog must be replaced with a vicious German Shepard. German should probably be a language he speaks. Of course, all of this will lead Casey down a comically dark path of only recycling violence rather than ending it. What it’s interesting is seeing just how far he goes before he realizes a change must be made.

Casey’s progression would seem weird if not for the weird world around him that has conditioned him to be this way. He is not allowed into conversations with his co-workers where they chat about sexual positions and how much they hate their boss and read nude magazines. Casey decides to copy this aspect to the ultimate extreme, resorting to punching his boss in the throat for his friendly tactics, stealing seats in the breakroom, and demanding his co-workers do pushups with him. It’s silly, but this is the world they have made, where the top dog is not the one with the most brains but the one willing to bite the hardest.

Similar in silliness is the idolization of the dojo, where karate is treated as a deeply earnest place of respect. It doesn’t take long to see its overflowing with lies under the guise of seeming legendary and manly. This is a generational aspect, as Sensei points out the dojo former grandmaster, a black nerd wielding a katana who invented his own moves and belt colors. They state he was tragically killed during a hunting accident where a gun went off in his face, leading the added 13th rule of the dojo “guns are for the weak.” Yet we also hear how the grandmaster developed a special fighting technique where he made heads explode with the punch of his index finger. This is a lie, revealed later on that he used a gun for his kills. But, of course, to seem tough and masculine, one must not admit this weakness.

The film also addresses the unfair stigma this version of masculinity places on the opposite sex. The only other woman in the dojo is Anna (Imogen Poots), who has been with the school since the beginning. She has advanced high enough to teach classes, but never to the degree of black belt. Anna’s changing room is the boiler room, assigned as a sort of punishment for aggression in the regular locker room. She should be a black belt by now and Casey, ever devoted to karate, soon realizes something is amiss. What Casey discovers is certainly bizarre with an odd ode to The Faces of Death video series, but also doesn’t shy away from the real concerns about the cyclical nature of aggression and profiting off the uncomfortable nature of not feeling like a man.

The Art of Self-Defense is deeply disturbing as it is hilariously absurd for taking heavy aim on a big subject. The violence is as savage as Sensei’s vile reasoning for why they should go out looking for fights. The big reveal of Sensei’s dark manipulation showcases a certain weakness in repression and a gross desire to profit off this weakness. The film suggests that everyone is weak and it’s all a matter of what you do with that weakness. You can either fix it or claim you’re the superior one for making heads explode with your finger.