“The Art of Self-Defense” is one of those curious pictures that has a lot of things going for it but never really adds up to much.
It clearly is “influenced” by 1999’s seminal “Fight Club” – to use the polite word. Writer/director Casey Davies is looking to say something about the state of modern masculinity, how we’ve entered this strange bullied/bullier dichotomy where men are either strong and malevolent or weak and preyed upon.
It’s a very dark comedy, which is another way of saying there are few, if any, laugh-out-loud moments.
Jesse Eisenberg, king of ironic Millennial cinematic wimps – though Michael Cera might challenge to the throne – plays Casey, a lonesome fellow who works in the accounting department of some unnamed large company. One day while going to the store he is viciously beaten up by some hoodlums on motorcycles.
While recovering from his injuries he wanders into a karate dojo in the low-rent section of town and is bedazzled by Sensei (Alessandro Nivola), who wants his students to punch with their feet and kick with their hands. He is seemingly calm and soothing but also confrontational and disparaging.
We sense that he likes the martial arts because it allows him to establish a pecking order, clearly delineated by ranks and colored belts, with himself at the top of the chain. It soon becomes clear that he sees those he instructs not as students but recruits into his cult of personality.
Casey starts listening to heavy metal and acting in a belligerent way at the urging of Sensei. In becoming what he beheld, though, he finds little emotional fulfillment.
This is a very dour, wry movie. It seems more interested in imparting a lesson than telling a story. And even the tale it does tell is one we’ve heard before.
Not surprisingly for a low-budget indie that made little ripple at the box office, “The Art of Self-Defense” is rather sparse on video extras.
They include “An Important Message from Sensei” featuring Nivola, and short interviews with cast and crew. That’s it.
I admit I’m not entirely sure what to make of “The Art of Self-Defense.” My first thought was that it’s like a cross of “The Lobster” and “Kick-Ass,” a dour existentialist parable mixed with a goofy martial arts flick.
It’s a comedy, or at least it thinks it’s a comedy. Opinions may vary.
Certainly, there are not very many laugh-out-loud moments in the movie. Or any. I think I got all the way up to a wry smirk a couple of times.
Jesse Eisenberg plays an anxious wimp who toughens himself up through karate under the tutorship of a charismatic sensei whose quiet ease obscures a maniacal malevolence. Think of the evil teacher in “The Karate Kid” -- “Mercy is for the weak!” -- after he’s had a talking-to by the HR department.
I found the movie often infuriating but also kind of enjoyable.
My main frustration is it’s part of this growing trend of movies, perhaps most notably with “The Lobster,” where actors deliberately deliver their lines in flat, inflectionless tones.
It’s almost like they’re reciting their dialogue rather than speaking it spontaneously. The characters announce themselves instead of exchanging their thoughts.
I think some people in Hollywood believe this is an aesthetic, when really it’s a crutch that’s annoying as hell. It puts the artifice of movie-making front and center. Mostly it serves to keep the characters at a distance.
Writer/director Riley Stearns seems to want to make a grand statement about the modern state of masculinity. It’s curious, then, that he chose to set the story in the mid-1990s or so.
Eisenberg plays Casey Davies, a meek drone in the accounting department of an unnamed large company. He tries to ingratiate himself into break room conversations but is brusquely cast out by his fellows. He has an inexpensive car, a small apartment and a dachshund, and that seems to be everything in his life.
One night while walking to the store to get some dog food -- ‘Why would he walk when he has a car?’ you may ask, though Stearns does not -- he is severely beaten and robbed by some motorcycle hoodlums, seemingly at random.
While recovering he walks by a seedy karate storefront, wanders in and is impressed by the sensei, who holds a hypnotic thrall over his students. He’s less teaching chops and kicks than selling an ethos of self-regard, and Casey is desperate to buy in.
Sensei -- the only name he goes by -- is played by Alessandro Nivola, who casually insults people while purporting to help them. He repeatedly derides Casey for his lack of masculine traits, from his “feminine-sounding” name to favoring small dogs and adult contemporary music. Sensei instructs him to start listening to heavy metal, and Casey begins to mirror the aggressive behavior he’s despised in other men.
After being awarded a yellow belt, Casey is so thrilled he makes a trip to the grocery store and buys only yellow foods, and yearns to wear his cloth karate belt everywhere he goes. This is the high-water mark, comedy-wise.
He starts to bond with other students, including an older man (David Zellner) who shows him the ropes and Anna (Imogen Poots), who leads the kids’ classes and would seem to be the best martial artist besides Sensei. Sensei smoothly observes that Anna will never reach her full masculine potential since she’s a woman.
Things go on. Casey hears tell of a mysterious “night class” with hardcore students and yearns to join. He becomes intrigued with the red or black stripes some students have on their belts, signifying achievements that largely have to do with loyalty to Sensei.
If you think about it, a lot of human activity shares aspects with cultism. There are explicit hierarchies and physical totems doled out as rewards. They only hold what value we choose to invest in them.
I don’t know how much cinematic value there is in “The Art of Self-Defense.” It’s the story of a weak man who learns to get stronger, but finds that strength does not equal happiness as he was taught. That’s an important, but rather basic, lesson on the road to true manhood.
Twenty years ago “Fight Club” spurred a lot of conversations about masculinity, even though not many people thought it was a very good movie at the time. We’ll see on this one.
“Disobedience” has a storyline that seems, at first, to be very familiar: prodigal child returns to the fold of the cloistered community they grew up in, and subsequently fled in disgrace, to find that things have not changed so very much. In this case, it’s Rachel Weisz as Ronit, who was raised in a strict Orthodox Jewish enclave in London, the only child of the revered Rav (Anton Lesser), the rabbinical leader of their kind.
Now a successful photographer, Ronit is coming home after years away -- I’m guessing around 20 -- because of the death of her father. In a powerful opening sequence, he crumples to the floor of the synagogue while delivering a passionate lesson on free will.
Her reappearance is greeted with something between tolerance and disdain. From the moment she locks eyes with Dovid (Alessandro Nivola), a youngish rabbi, we know there is great history between them. We start to read things into the story: they had a torrid affair, which perhaps caused the schism with her father, who was Dovid’s teacher and he the old man’s star pupil.
Ronit is somewhat shocked to learn that Dovid has married her childhood best friend, Esti (Rachel McAdams). But they seem happy, or at least content, and after agreeing to stay in their house, Ronit learns to accept the situation for what it is. Or at least what we think it is.
It’s another knockout performance by Weisz, who’s been wowing in smaller films for several years now. She might just have the best claim to the title of finest actress working movies today.
In virtually every scene we feel her tension, her resentment, knowing that she is constantly being looked at, spoken about, judged. It’s apparent Ronit was never formally shunned, but clearly everyone views her as the black sheep. She’s crushed when the Rav’s obituary lists him as childless.
Based upon the novel by Naomi Alderman, “Disobedience” was directed by Sebastián Lelio, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Like Lelio’s previous effort, the Oscar-winning “A Fantastic Woman,” this is the tale of a woman who has been relegated as an outsider, resenting this status but also thirsting to be accepted for who she is.
It’s a quietly observant movie that soaks us in the culture of strict British Judaism. For instance, Ronit’s uncle (Allan Corduner) makes his business in women’s wigs. Married women in their sect traditionally cover their hair like Muslims, though they use wigs rather than scarves. The idea is that only her husband is allowed to see her natural hair -- a form of intimacy that ventures disturbingly close to subjugation.
McAdams is very good, too, in an emotionally complex role in which Esti experiences as much turmoil as Ronit, and more intensely so.
As it turns out (spoiler warning), Ronit’s forbidden teenage romance was not with Dovid, but with Esti. Esti is forced to resolve her reawakened feelings, after having spent years trying to adhere to the role of the good Jewish wife. The two actresses’ sex scenes are astonishingly emotional, raw and erotic, despite displaying very little flesh. In contrast, Esti is often nude in Dovid’s presence, but their interactions are virtually sexless.
I was also impressed in Dovid’s portrayal. Most movies of this sort would be eager to pigeonhole him as the villain, and indeed he does not react well upon realizing what is going on underneath his own roof. Dovid is in line to succeed the Rav, so he must face a crisis of conscious of his own as a husband, a spiritual leader and a man living in a patriarchal society that demands he keep his “house in good order.”
Every one of us faces a point in life where we must decide if we are to live according to other’s expectations for us, or our own. “Disobedience” is a fine, insightful film that shows how this choice not so easy or conclusive as we might think.
Joe -- which may not be his real name -- is a lonely person, stuck somewhere between hero and villain, not caring much about the shadings between the two. He’s a man of mystery, but also a complete open book, in that everything about him is laid bare without pretense.
Played by Joaquin Phoenix in another one of his bizarre, affecting, only-he-could-pull-it-off performances, Joe is a hired thug who specializes in tracking down young girls who have been kidnapped and put into the sex trade. He’s an ex-something -- soldier, cop, maybe DEA or ICE -- we’re never really sure. Clearly his past life taints him.
Joe’s body is thick, strong, crisscrossed with scars. Hair and graying beard grow unchecked, pinned back as necessary when the work becomes wet… which is often.
“You Were Never Really There” is a sketch of a man who has no self-identity beyond what he does. Joe is brutal, preferring to use a hammer to split open the skulls of those he encounters. (It says something that he buys a fresh one for each job.) Yet he speaks with a gentle, muffled voice, even when interrogating someone he needs to squeeze for information.
He has lived with violence all his life; it is his constant companion but not his bride.
Writer/director Lynne Ramsay, whose last feature was the disturbing “We Need to Talk about Kevin” in 2011, gives us a very spare, deliberately paced film about revenge and persona. Based on the novel by Jonathan Ames, Joe is a man haunted by demons, but able to keep them at bay -- until his latest job goes bad, bad, bad.
Without giving anything away, it involves working for a state senator (Alex Manette), whose daughter, Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov) has been taken. Much is left unspoken, but the politician knows more than he is saying.
“I want you to hurt them,” is his final instruction to Joe, along with the promise of $50,000.
Joe’s life is quiet and ordered, outside of the grim work he performs at night. He cares for his elderly mother (Judith Roberts), who is homebound and watches TV all day. Joe nags her for having expired food in her fridge, or taking too long in the bathroom. But it’s clear he would never leave her.
Flashbacks give hints to domestic violence in their past. To calm his nerves, Joe likes to go into the closet of his boyhood bedroom and place a plastic bag over his head. He’s not trying to suffocate himself; certainly he gains no sexual pleasure from it (or possibly from anything). It’s just his way of coping with the past by recreating it.
There’s not much else to the story. John Doman plays Joe’s frontman, who finds him jobs in exchange for a cut. Angel (Frank Pando) is his bodega banker, handling the cash for his own little piece of the action. His dealings with both men are curt, unemotional. They are the closest things to friends a guy like him can have.
Ramsay takes her time building the ingredients of her tale, which is based on a novella by Jonathan Ames. She favors long shots that just show the things Joe is seeing as he travels from place to place. I daresay some people will find the movie slow or even dull.
I think it has a darkling loveliness that’s hard to compare. The inharmonious musical score and soundtrack of old songs, especially “Angel Baby,” lend the film a creeping nostalgia. Phoenix is moody and mesmerizing, worth the price of admission all on his own.
In the end, “You Were Never Really There” is an existential portrait of a killer, someone who sees himself as utterly empty, who only realizes the value of things after he has lost them.
Young writer/director J.C. Chandor made the wonderful but little-seen “Margin Call” in 2011, then followed it up with the virtually wordless “All Is Lost” starring Robert Redford, earning a well-deserved Oscar nomination for screenplay in the process.
After such a dazzling career start, I was expecting great things out of his third feature film, “A Most Violent Year.” But while most other critics found this 1980s crime-and-punishment drama worthy, I was put off by its circuitous plotting and unrealized themes.
Oscar Isaac plays Abel Morales, owner of a heating oil business serving the New York City area. It’s an industry rife with corruption, grudges, protection money and outright thievery, and nobody keeps their hands entirely clean – including Abel. He’s about to buy a fuel terminal that will give him a huge leg up, but challenges abound.
His trucks are being routinely hijacked and the oil stolen. Meanwhile, the local district attorney (David Oyelowo) is breathing down his neck with pending charges, which causes the financing for his big deal to teeter. And his Lady MacBeth-ish wife (Jessica Chastain), the daughter of an infamous mobster, chastises Abel for refusing to fight fire with fire.
It’s a whole lot of intriguing, disparate elements that never really solidify into a coherent whole. Abel is presented as reluctant to use violence to get what he wants, but as he is the only person in his realm who thinks this way, it makes him seem hopelessly naïve and impotent. The wife character, meanwhile, feels like an amalgam of other tough molls we’ve seen in film noir pictures over the years.
Chandor avoided the “sophomore slump” that often affects promising filmmakers on their second outing. But given the heights of his fledgling career, his third effort registers as a major disappointment.
“A Most Violent Year” is being released with solid video extras, starting with a feature-length commentary track by Chandor and two of producers. There are also three making-of featurettes focusing on production, the original concept for the film and a conversation with Isaac and Chastain. Plus, deleted scenes and outtakes.
Coco Chanel had as much impact on society as any woman of the 20th century. Her clothing designs were revolutionary, centered on the notions of simplicity and realism. Constricting corsets, huge flower hats and trails of lace and poofery all died off in the wake of her clean, elegant vision.
The movie about her life before becoming famous, "Coco Before Chanel," similarly opts for simplicity, smoothing out any inconvenient ruffles in the icon's history. The result is a film that seems magnetically repulsed by emotionality.
French screen queen Audrey Tautou strikes quite an imposing figure as Chanel, with her dark eyes and penetrating stare as she observes -- and dismisses -- the early 20th century fashions of her day.
The story concentrates mostly on Chanel's two major romances, with French aristocrat playboy Etienne Balsan (Benoît Poelvoorde) and English businessman Arthur "Boy" Capel (Alessandro Nivola).
Each in their own way, her lovers try to control her, or at least channel her talents in ways that suited them. But Coco repeatedly casts off any attempts to bind her in chains -- lovely and golden though they may be.
Extras are identical for both DVD and Blu-ray versions.
There's a 45-minute making-of documentary, featuring a lot of solo interviews with principal cast and crew. I have to say that the French take themselves much more seriously than do American filmmakers, and their ramblings about the importance of this or the significance of that quickly grows pedantic to these ears.
The exception is Poelvoorde, who's funny and engaging. Talking about what he did to prepare for his role, he casually dismisses Method acting. "I don't believe in this Actors Studio stuff. It's for people who have nothing to do," he says.
There is also an 18-minute featurette focusing on Chanel's young life, and 8 minutes of footage from the New York and Los Angeles premieres.
A commentary track by director/co-writer Anne Fontaine, producer Philippe Carcassonne and editor Luc Barnier is pretty slow-going stuff.
"Coco Before Chanel" has some nice elements in its depiction of the early life of fashion icon Coco Chanel. But like a strange bit of slapdash couture, they never fit together in an appealing way.
Audrey Tautou plays Gabrielle Chanel, who came from humble roots -- abandoned with her sister to an orphanage by an indifferent father after their mother died -- to build a business empire that still reigns, while ushering in a sea change in the way women clothed themselves.
Before Chanel -- nicknamed "Coco" as a child -- upper-crust women of early 20th century France were still squeezed into corsets, with spilling bodices, long trains and elaborate hats that resembled (in Coco's biting words) meringue pies.
Her emphasis on elegant simplicity and clothes that actually fit the body that occupied them rather than the other way around was revolutionary. Her tendency to borrow from men's fashions prompted early critics to dub her styles "mannish," and spark speculation about Chanel's sexuality that still persist.
Director Anne Fontaine, who co-wrote the script with sister Camille based on the book by Edmonde Charles-Roux, ducks this essential question in her film. Although she is never shown having romantic feelings toward another woman, Coco answers a question about whether she prefers men or women with the terse reply, "Skin is skin."
The story mainly centers on her relationship with two wealthy men who were both lovers and backers of her business ventures: French aristocrat Etienne Balsan (Benoît Poelvoorde) and English businessman Arthur "Boy" Capel (Alessandro Nivola).
While working as a seamstress and performing a song-and-dance routine with her sister (Marie Gillain) in a nightclub, Coco meets Balsan and begins an affair that spurs her to go to live with him, uninvited. At first Balsan exploits the situation, using his interloping lodger for his entertainment, both social and sexual.
But eventually the tides turn, and he finds he needs Coco more than she does he. This gradual shift in power is the most interesting thing about the movie, and the scenes between Tautou and Poelvoorde have a lovely melancholy tone.
The affair with Capel, although outwardly conforming to a classic cinematic romance, is curiously devoid of much real passion.
It almost seems like Fontaine endeavors to keep the film on a smooth emotional keel, as does Tautou's performance. Whenever the movie seems ready to open up into a grand moment or emotion, the film pulls back.
Spareness may work in fashion, but "Coco Before Chanel" could have stood a little more ostentatiousness in its moods.
