‘Manodrome’ Movie Review: Jesse Eisenberg Is Unnerving As An Inducted Incel
Photo from Lionsgate
From Jeremy Kibler
Masculinity is terrifying in Manodrome, an unnerving and compelling character study on the level of American History X. Although not by traditional standards, this is a nihilistic horror film through and through, if only that the horrors presented here within an incel cult could very well exist in plain sight. One will recoil but remain gripped, like watching an irreversible car accident unfold in slow-motion.
Jesse Eisenberg plays Ralphie, a Syracuse ride-share driver who’s recently been laid off from his maintenance job. Things are financially tight, especially with a baby on the way with pregnant girlfriend Sal (Odessa Young). Ralphie takes his frustrations out by weightlifting at the gym and eying up a gorgeously sculpted bodybuilder (Sallieu Sesay). Soon, he joins his drug-dealing gym buddy (Philip Ettinger) for a night out with a group of men, led by Dad Dan (Adrien Brody). All of them involuntary celibates, they’re like a “chosen family” living together under one roof (Evan Jonigkeit and Ethan Supple being the most recognizable faces). Dan, in particular, sees something in Ralphie, telling him to take back his power. As Ralphie gets indoctrinated, he becomes even less ready to become a father (especially to a daughter), leading him down a path of destruction.
Coming off his 2017 LGBTQ+ film The Wound (which was briefly banned in his home South African country), queer writer-director John Trengove builds a tone of foreboding, planting us inside Ralphie’s sexually repressed head. Popping pills and adopting an even more agro frame of mind, Ralphie may or may not be experiencing everything we see. Is the Salvation Army Santa Claus outside Sal’s grocery-store workplace really exposing himself to Ralphie on the street? A scene where Ralphie picks up a gay couple outside a club builds tension as the couple begin making out in the backseat, until it just ends; did it actually happen? The film never actually coddles Ralphie or makes us sympathize with him, but it does make us believe that he’s just one of many men to buy into these radicalized ideas of what a man can be.
Taking what feels like a clean slate from almost any character he’s ever played before, Jesse Eisenberg is effectively raw and then chilling as a man who’s really an abandoned little boy inside, packing on muscle as armor to make himself feel manly. Even before meeting these other alphas, Ralphie already seems aloof and mighty, snapping a peek in his rear-view mirror at a female rider (Riley Keough, a producer on the film) breast-feeding her baby. He walks with a performative gait at the gym that never feels natural and greets his bros with a “sup” nod. Brewing with hyper-masculine rage and bravado, Ralphie is still vulnerable and bendable enough to fall in with these like-minded men. When Dad Dan (a persuasive Adrien Brody) tells him he has “a staggering beauty, a cataclysmic power to create and annihilate,” Ralphie laps it up and falls hard as if nobody can’t touch him.
In film, presentation does not have to equal endorsement. Spending time in this “manosphere” feels reminiscent of last year’s Soft & Quiet, a staggeringly visceral one-take film that followed around an all-female group of white supremacists. In real life, we would steer clear of these people, but on screen, it’s hard to tear your eyes away from them and watching Ralphie spiral. Cinematographer Wyatt Garfield’s lensing often hypnotizes, particularly with the dynamic use of single takes as Ralphie grows more and more unhinged, and Christopher Stracey’s music score is like the soundscape of an anxiety attack. The final shot, a calm, almost-soothing respite from the chaos Ralphie has left in his wake, is somewhat ambiguous but complete in its implications.
Equally tough to take and tough to shake, Manodrome is still well worth the effort.
Rating: 4/5
Manodrome hits theaters on November 10, 2023, followed by an on demand and digital release on November 17th.
