Is the Art of Self Defense Shot on Film
Everything almost Casey Davies is blandly brown: his clothes, his dwelling, his dog, his demeanor. Even the handbag of dog food he picks up at the grocery store on the dark his life changes forever is brown—with generic labeling, naturally.
But presently, another colour will come to define Casey: yellow. That'due south the first chugalug he earns in one case he starts taking karate lessons, giving him a flare-up of confidence he's never known. Just instead of a sunny, cheery yellow, this hue comes to represent something more sinister: bright flashes of anger and a called-for aggression.
Author/director Riley Stearns explores this particularly masculine form of toxicity in "The Fine art of Cocky-Defense," a dark comedy that'southward equal parts amusing and agonizing. Stearns is aggressive in the tricky tonal residuum he aims to strike here – shocking us in discrete, deadpan style—and his story wobbles a chip by the cease, only the points he's making couldn't be clearer or timelier. And he draws an inspired performance from Jesse Eisenberg as the meek auditor who finally finds the sense of self-worth that's long eluded him, misguided every bit it may be.
This is an heady divergence from the quick-witted, jittery fast-talker Eisenberg so often has played. There'south a gentle sadness to his understated timidity. Before Casey undergoes his transformation, you tin feel him quietly quavering as he struggles to make small talk with the idiot bro dudes in the break room at work. When he comes dwelling house, he'south visibly relieved that all he has to do is enjoy the company of his sweet dachshund waiting for him on the couch. And when he gets beaten and robbed in the center of the street while making a grocery store run for that canis familiaris, he doesn't even brainstorm to fight back; rather, he willingly gives upwardly his wallet to the helmeted motorcyclists who've terrorized him. (The fact that Casey's attacked at night by a band of thugs on motorbikes feels similar i of many clever ways Stearns tweaks "The Karate Kid" mythology.)
Once he walks into a strip-mall karate studio in hopes of learning how to protect himself, though, a totally different side of Casey breaks loose. And the person coaxing out this hidden monster is a charming manipulator who insists his students address him simply as Sensei. Alessandro Nivola is both hilarious and chilling every bit the self-serious instructor; he's a cult-like figure who has a peachy sense of the weak and knows how prey on their vulnerabilities. Casey shows no discernible talent for martial arts, merely Sensei wisely recognizes him as easy pickings, and alternately breaks him downward and butters him up to earn Casey's fervent loyalty. Stearns smartly explores the ways in which men seek to gain one another's approving through both dominance and acquiescence. Casey suddenly begins barking out orders at strangers and behaving violently at the office, but he also starts listening to speed metal at Sensei's urging rather than his beloved adult contemporary.
Only if this legend begins life as a twisted accept on "The Karate Child," information technology rapidly morphs into a cautionary tale in the vein of "Fight Club." Equally Casey gets drawn deeper into Sensei'south globe—with its clandestine night classes and mysterious stripe system—he initially becomes more fascinated and desirous of his acceptance. And withal, Stearns still keeps united states of america at arm'due south length, framing and shooting his characters with minimalist precision and having them speak to each other in a cocky-consciously stilted manner. Their delusional enthusiasm for embodying extreme manly-man tropes would exist hilarious if it weren't and then pathetic. This is especially true of one of Sensei'due south almost rah-rah clientele, a grown-up played with teenage-male child idealism by David Zellner. (He's too an executive producer alongside his brother and indie filmmaking collaborator, Nathan; yous can run into traces of their depression-key, surreal way at work here).
One of Sensei'due south tried-and-true $.25 of instruction is telling his students to kick with their hands and punch with their feet. This notion and many others may seem contradictory, merely the dojo's regulars are then deeply in his thrall and and then desperate for his approval that they'll buy whatever he'due south selling. Within this insular, testosterone-heavy world, Imogen Poots is a welcome source of female strength, even as her character, Anna, strains to retain her dignity amid the misogyny as both a student and teacher.
"The Fine art of Self-Defense" doesn't build to the kind of feel-proficient finale that you'd expect from a more traditional type of movie about the transformative power of sports. Merely it definitely sweeps the leg in its own way.
Christy Lemire
Christy Lemire is a longtime pic critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the moving-picture show critic for The Associated Press for virtually fifteen years and co-hosted the public television serial "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here.
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The Art of Self-Defence (2019)
104 minutes
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