One of the exciting things about going to a film festival is not knowing. Maybe there’s been a trailer, maybe you’re familiar with the writer or director, but more often than not, all you have to go on is a short blurb in the program. In the case of John Trengove’s Manodrome, the scant few details that were available led me astray. The short description is that the movie stars Jesse Eisenberg as a Uber driver who gets drawn into a “masculinity cult.” I doubt that I’m alone in thinking that this scenario sounds like a dark comedy along the lines of recent Eisenberg movies such as The Art of Self-Defense and Vivarium. Well, the truth is that Manodrome is one of the darkest, bleakest, and un-funniest movies I’ve seen at this year’s Berlinale — a film festival that never shies away from the grim side of humanity.
Trengrove has only one other feature to his name, The Wound, which played in the Panorama section of the 2017 Berlinale. If I’d seen this prior to Manodrome, I would’ve had a better idea of what to expect since The Wound is also interested in looking at the worst-case-scenario effects of toxic masculinity — in this case, among a group of men in South Africa. Manodrome moves the action to the US, where we meet Jesse Eisenberg’s Ralphie, a guy who has recently been laid off and is scraping by as an Uber driver. His girlfriend Sal (Odessa Young) works at a convenience store and is nine months pregnant with their kid. From the start, Ralphie is a pressure cooker of a guy. Not having a steady job and being on the verge of becoming a dad is clearly too much for him to bear. He’s trying to stay calm, but Eisenberg does a fine job of conveying the ocean of rage that is boiling beneath the surface. He’s a meek guy who’s in control of nothing except his own body. So he binge eats when no one is looking and compulsively works out at a gym. One of the more shocking things about Manodrome is how bulked-up Eisenberg got for this role.
Through a friend and former co-worker, Ralphie is introduced to a mysterious group of guys led by Dan (Adrien Brody). Initially, we’re told that it’s some sort of philanthropic group organized to help men who’ve fallen through society’s cracks. We of course know differently. Dan is bad news. He’s the kind of guy who preys on lost souls. In this case, he collects men who feel emasculated and encourages them to leave the “gynosphere.” Dan can sense Ralphie’s anger, but he underestimates how much rage he’s been bottling up. So, when Ralphie is inducted into Dan’s cult and encouraged to embrace his manhood and open up, violence ensues.
Given that Richie is an Uber driver, it’s not hard to see Manodrome as a modern-day Taxi Driver. Aside from their jobs, both movies have unstable and off-putting protagonists who are pushed to their breaking point by a society that has marginalized them. The only sympathy they get are from men who nudge them further in the wrong direction, and women who ultimately become too frightened of the violence within them. Paul Schrader, the writer of Taxi Driver, has built a long career out of exploring the darker aspects of masculinity and putting unstable men at the center of his movies. In other words, Schrader knows how to deal with anti-heroes in a way that makes audiences lean-in rather than turn away. Part of that magic is crafting stories that twist and turn and go in unexpected and suspenseful directions.
Manodrome, on the other hand, is short on interesting plot developments or much in the way of suspense. There’s no Jodie Foster character for Richie to save. There’s no hint of twisted nobility. Only generous amounts of pitifulness and anger that fail to generate any sympathy. I don’t need Richie to be a “likable” protagonist, but it would greatly benefit the movie if there was more to the character than being a slightly grotesque, semi-mute pressure cooker ready to explode.
I’ll admit that Trengrove has a great eye for composition and knows how to sustain a mood — but the movie just feels like a 95-minute panic attack. From the first frame, Ralphie is on the verge of bursting a blood vessel, and we spend the rest of the movie just waiting for him to snap. And when he does snap, there’s hardly any transformation, since he was already running at 99%. Meanwhile, he just keeps cycling through the same routine: lifting weights, driving his car, being awkward around his girlfriend, and being brainwashed by Dan. While there are some truly shocking moments in Manodrome, there are no twists and turns in the plot that make you lean in. Ralphie is such a sad, broken and tormented guy, I was mostly just waiting for the inevitable conclusion so that everyone’s suffering could be over.
Like many of the films premiering at Berlinale this year, Manodrome is something of an experiment, and it’s admirable in that respect. The movie pushes the envelope in terms of unpleasantness while drowning the audience in an atmosphere of misogyny and icky men’s rights activism. This is purposeful and effective in getting you to understand how easily a lost soul can get swept up by the so-called manosphere. But we’re always kept at a frustrating remove, with no central character to latch on to and no story or suspense to keep us engaged.
