The Art Of Self-Defense (5 Stars)

Have you ever watched a film a few times, and then it suddenly hit you how good it is? I watched "The Art of Self-Defense" (sic) twice in March this year. Both times I gave it a four star rating. Don't get me wrong, in my rating system any film that receives four stars is a good film that I would recommend to anyone. The missing star just means that something magic is missing. Or maybe the magic was there all the time, but I didn't see it. That's what happened to me this evening. I put the Blu-ray disc in my player and sat back to relax. I found myself laughing out loud at the humour. I laughed the previous times I watched it, but this time it was funnier and I laughed louder than I've ever laughed for any film. Then it hit me. "This film is brilliant. It's one of the best films I've ever seen".

There aren't many comedies in my top 100 list. There's "Deadpool" and "Deadpool 2". And "Mad Heidi". Those are the only overt comedies, but there a few films with subtle humour, such as "Snatch". Maybe I should say that the comedy in "The Art of Self-Defense" is subtle as well. The jokes are delivered with deadpan faces and aren't immediately recognisable as jokes. They need a few seconds to sink in, by which time other things have been said. For instance, when Sensei is explaining the purpose of women he speaks this line:

"There are things that men and women can do together, like riding tandem and sex. Men ride tandem to please the woman, with sex it's the other way round".

Maybe I didn't rate the film as highly the first time because of Jesse Eisenberg's wooden acting. He always says "I am" and "You are", never "I'm" or "You're". There are no contractions at all in his speech. In the disc's extra features he tells us this was a requirement from the director, Riley Stearns. Jesse had to speak and act like an inexperienced actor in his first role, struggling to remember his lines.

As many of my readers know, I'm a female supremacist. That made it difficult for me to give the film a five star rating on first viewing. Imogen Poots plays Anna, the only woman in a man's world. She has great strength, both physical and emotional, but she chooses to submit to the misogynistic men around her, which encourages them in their way of thinking. This is unpleasant, on the surface, but when you look deeper you can see that the men around her are stupid and she's only waiting for an opportunity to show them how stupid they are.

A brilliant film. I've pushed it up to ninth place in my top 100 list, the first change in my top 10 for years. If you check my list today you won't see it yet. I'll update my list in the next few days.

Success Rate:  - 0.7