Quiet and unsure, Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) is a numbers guy, a bookkeeper who mostly keeps to himself as he lives alone with his miniature dachshund. He’s learning French, in hopes to visit France one day, but the phrases he practices are all submissive – “I don’t want any trouble, sir.” Even when Casey attempts to join a work conversation in the breakroom where three men are ridiculing the boss, he is quick to be verbally assaulted as they order him out of the room.
Morbid and audacious, THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE is a unique dark comedy that fist kicks the absurdity of extreme masculinity.
The opening scenes are an impressive introduction to creating a character using minimal dialogue but encapsulating everything we need to know about who Casey is as a person. Casey lives in fear. Casey is an easy target for bullies to prey.
While walking to get dog food one evening, a motorcycle gang attacks and beats him to the point of hospitalization. To learn how to protect himself, Casey reactively attempts buying a gun to hilarious results. But on his way home, he is captivated by a local dojo. He meets a seemingly kind but stern Sensei (Alessandro Nivola), who, while has very strict rules to his Karate class, is the exact sort of mentor Casey believes he needs. As an early lesson to meek Casey, Sensei urges him to make some lifestyle changes – Get a bigger dog, listen to heavy metal, and give up French for Russian lessons. His new world is about to take a turn.
THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE begs to ask the question, what kind of dark turn can giving yourself up to the tropes of masculinity and following the alpha dog take you? What if in THE KARATE KID, Daniel LaRusso did not recognize his assailants when he first entered the Cobra Kai? Or that they didn’t attend this place that teaches pain? Or perhaps it takes a more astute observation to what is happening in THE KARATE KID PART III as Daniel puts too much trust into his new mentor?
I am fascinated to see what writer and director Riley Stearns has in store for us next and I think I might have to seek out his previous films FAULTS and THE CUB. It helps that he has an excellent cast to get behind him. Nivola is terrific as the charismatic and disturbing Sensei, while Imogen Poots is equally fantastic as a hardcore brown belt who is refused the ranks of black belt because of her gender. While he was incredible in THE SOCIAL NETWORK, Jesse Eisenberg hasn’t wowed me quite to this degree since ROGER DODGER.
Defining a “dark comedy” can sometimes be confusing. THE ART OF SELF-DEFENSE delivers some very horrific and sad interactions, but it has a humorous, off-beat observation and delivery to it all. The film recognizes the troubling under-belly of hyper-masculinity but it also pokes it with a stick.
