The Art of Self-Defense Reviews

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure to what to expect from this flick but since it was starring Jesse Eisenberg and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out. Well, it turned out to be an intriguing movie, that’s for sure. Indeed, even though the tone was fairly well established, the whole thing was pretty dark, the genre they were going for was much more unclear. However, it was done on purpose and I think it was actually quite clever. Indeed, it made the whole thing quite unpredictable and I kept wondering where they were going with all that. Eventually, its sheer randomness also had its downside and I’m afraid the end-result didn’t completely add up. It mostly had to do with the fact that none of the characters was developed whatsoever, even the main character. Sure, this way, they could keep a cloud of mystery around all these rather weird characters but it turned out to be after all an artificial gimmick and I wish they tried to explain slightly more their behavior and actions. For example, how could you explain that Anna would put up with this nasty behavior? Why did she stick around? In a similar fashion, even though Sensei AKA Leslie’s macho misogynist approach was obviously toxic, somehow, it seems that it still allowed Casey to have more confidence after all which was a rather questionable and even bewildering narrative choice. Finally, even though it might seem neat that Casey and Anna would take over the dojo at the end, it seems rather unlikely that the dojo’s students would inherit it automatically if the owner would suddenly pass away. Anyway, to conclude, even if not everything did make sense, with this mix of various genres and its unpredictability, the damned thing was still really interesting to behold and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.