Movie Review: The Art of Self-Defense

The Art of Self-Defense ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Riley Stearns.

Written by: Riley Stearns.

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg (Casey), Alessandro Nivola (Sensei), Imogen Poots (Anna), Steve Terada (Thomas), Phillip Andre Botello (Kennith), Hauke Bahr (Grant), Jason Burkey (Alex), Justin Eaton (Lone Man), Dallas Edwards (Manny), Josh Fadem (Serial Killer), Leland Orser (Detective McCallister), C.J. Rush (Other Steve), Louis Robert Thompson (Veterinarian), David Zellner (Henry).

 

There is a lot to admire about Riley Stearns The Art of Self-Defense – chief among them being Jessie Eisenberg’s performance – but the film just never quite comes together. The film is supposed to be a dark comedy – and yet I don’t think ever laughed in the film. The film also wants to disturb you with its take on toxic masculinity – and yet, I don’t think it really digs very deep there either. The film gets lost somewhere along the way – too in love with its influence (the film is part The Karate Kid, part Fight Club) to really come up with anything original along the way. If you don’t see most of the twists coming in the film, you aren’t paying attention.

 

In the film, Jessie Eisenberg plays Casey – a meek, mild-mannered accountant (sigh, as an accountant, I have to say that I more bored than offended that every time a filmmaker needs to have a meek, loser character they make them an accountant – it’s lazy) who is walking home from the grocery store with dog food for his beloved dachshund, when he is attacked by a group of helmet wearing motorcyclists. He gives up his wallet easily, but they still beat him – pretty severely – and leave him there. We already know Casey is meek and mild – he struggles to make connections at work, cannot even make small talk with his “bro” co-workers in the breakroom, and can barely raise his voice above a whisper. He has no one in his life other than that dog.

 

That beat down changes his life. At first, he decides he should buy a gun to protect himself – but then happens to walk buy a karate studio, and goes in – and immediately falls in love. The studio is run by a megalomaniac with the charm of a cult leader who insists that everyone just refer to him as Sensei (Alessandro Nivola). He exercises complete control over this karate studio – and fills the head of the almost exclusively male clientele – all of whom seem to live for this karate studio – and Sensei himself. The one woman is Anna (Imogen Poots) – who is perhaps more obsessed than anyone to get Sensei’s approval – in part because she knows she will never fully have it (I have realized that she can never become a man, Sensei tells Casey one day). While Casey becomes subservient to Sensei – in his regular life, he becomes a monster. He stands up to everyone who he used to bow down to – but not in a constructive way, but in an overtly violent way. And at the studio, the violence level also increases.

 

The best thing in the movie is Eisenberg’s performance. Eisenberg is still best remembered for his brilliant performance in The Social Network as Mark Zuckerberg – and most people probably see him as that motor mouthed smartass. But Eisenberg has smartly tried to get away from that in recent years – doing quieter performances in films like Night Moves and The Double. He is still best playing assholes – but he has proven there is more than one note there. Here, he is good as the quiet, shy Casey – and gets better the bigger asshole Casey becomes. I’m not quite sure the full transition makes sense (he goes on quite a journey to get where he is at the end) – but that’s more a function of the screenplay than Eisenberg.

 

The film was written and directed by Riley Stearns – whose last film was Faults, about a cult de-programmer and his latest job. Both films are about, in a way, toxic masculinity – but Faults approached it in a more sideways manner. In The Art of Self-Defense, Stearns goes straight on – and I’m not sure the film ever really does anything surprising. It certainly tries to shock us in the end – but it isn’t particularly shocking. The film has fun playing with The Karate Kid mythos and style – but that’s really only surface level. As the film morphs into a Fight Club inspired film about this level of violence, you kind of realize the film has nothing much to say that David Fincher’s film didn’t say 20 years ago. I kept waiting for The Art of Self-Defense to go somewhere I didn’t expect it to – and I guess the last scene does that. But that’s an awful long way to go before we really do something unique.

Movie Poster: Faults

Faults
Directed by: Riley Stearns.
Written by: Riley Stearns.
Starring: Leland Orser (Ansel), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Claire), Chris Ellis (Dad), Beth Grant (Evelyn), Jon Gries (Terry), Lance Reddick (Mick).

If you’ve watched much TV or many movies over the past two decades or so, you’ve probably seen Leland Orser dozens of times, and not really noticed. He has almost 80 acting credits over the years – appearing, mainly in small roles, in dozens of movies – large and small – and TV shows. He is the classic definition of a character actor, and looking back over his screen credits, I do find I remember him in his best work – like his one scene wonder in David Fincher’s Seven as a man forced to do a horrible thing. Or in last year’s excellent The Guest, as a patriarch who at first doesn’t trust the new houseguest, but hell, it gives him a drinking buddy, so who cares? Actors like Orser are always supposed to be in the background – coming forward for a scene or two, and then fading from memory.

In Faults, Orser finally gets his chance to be a leading man – and he makes the most of it. The movie asks a lot from Orser, whose performance veers, along with the movie, from comedy to tragedy, and everything in between. Ultimately, the movie ends up in precisely the spot I thought it would when the movie began – but the process of getting there is much different than I anticipated. And Orser, who is the center of every scene, is terrific throughout.

Orser stars as Ansel – a middle aged, pathetic shell of a man. He was once famous – he had his own TV show, and a bestselling book, both about cults – and getting people out of them. Something went wrong though – we get some, but not all, of the details throughout the movie – and now Ansel is stuck shilling his new book – that no one wants to buy – to small crowds in rundown hotel conference rooms. We first meet him arguing with the waiter and manager of a hotel restaurant about his bill – he was told (or so he says) that one meal per day would be provided for him while he was there giving his talk. The waiter and manager disagree – and the whole thing devolves into a scene that is awkward, funny and sad at the same time.

Things take a turn when he is approached by an older couple (Chris Ellis and Beth Grant) – who want Ansel to get their daughter, Claire (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) out of a “cult” – known as Faults (no “The”). Ansel tries hard to put them off – but he needs the money. His “manager”, Terry (Jon Gries) wants the money he fronted Ansel, and is starting to send around some intimidating muscle in the form of Mick (Lance Reddick) to collect. He hires some goons, and they kidnap Claire for him – delivering her to a hotel room, while her parents wait in the adjoining room. Ansel sets about “breaking” Claire – who is calm and serene throughout – unless her parents are there that is.

The best scenes in the movie are probably between Orser and Winstead. Winstead has been a promising actress for years now (Death Proof, Smashed, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, etc) without every really having that big breakout role. This isn’t that role either – but Winstead plays it well. But Claire is more of a one note character than Ansel is – although Winstead starts to give her some shading as the movie progresses, and she starts to break. Or does she? From the start, I never really trusted Faults to play it straight with me – or to put it another way, for Claire to play straight with me. Ansel – yes. He may change from scene to scene, but that’s because each scene requires something else from him if he’s going to keep his head above water (if he even wants that). But from the start, there is something off about Claire. She’s too calm and serene – even for a cult member – and she seems to be broken too easily by Ansel. Does he even know what he’s doing anymore? There is a tension between them though – as both try to get the upper hand, without letting the other know that they want it that works quite well.

The rest of the overly complicated plot isn’t really necessary – accept, of course, to provide a few more characters in the film, and get it outside of that hotel room (even if that is where the movie is at its best). The film was written and directed by Riley Stearns (Winsted’s husband_ = and it’s his feature debut after a trio of shorts. It’s a more promising debut than a good one. It shows Stearns has some talent in writing dialogue and characters, and his slightly off-kilter framing works well. Faults isn’t a great movie by any means – but it’s the type of debut that makes me curious what Stearns is going to do next.