Summary

Manodrome lacks the depth and social commentary found in movies like Taxi Driver and Fight Club due to its lack of voiceover narration. Jesse Eisenberg’s performance as Ralphie, a character struggling with his identity, is a standout in the film. Unlike movies like Taxi Driver and Fight Club, Manodrome fails to challenge the viewer’s own perspective and morality, resulting in a movie that is relatively toothless.

It might seem unfair to measure Manodrome against generation-defining explorations of masculine rage like Taxi Driver and Fight Club, but this movie seems to invoke them. Its protagonist is a driver, but for Uber; he joins a cultish, all-male club, but they do more chanting and shopping than mayhem. The list of concepts touched upon as he spirals downward is long enough to understand that writer-director John Trengove aims to speak to our moment as those movies did to theirs, but his work is ultimately defined by something it doesn’t carry over — voiceover narration. Manodrome lacks depth as either social commentary or character study, in large part because of how it positions us in relation to its protagonist’s perspective. Though we are tied to his experience, this closeness doesn’t come with the same flirtation with complicity at the core of both those touchstones, resulting in a movie that, while admittedly mood-altering, is relatively toothless.

Ralphie (Jesse Eisenberg) is in a holding pattern when we first meet him. He’s driving for Uber after having recently been laid off, while his girlfriend Sal (Odessa Young), who is in the late stages of pregnancy, holds down her convenience store job. He spends his spare time at the gym, fixated on his body and how it compares to the larger, more defined men working out alongside him. He doesn’t really seem to have friends — the only one we see who comes close, Jason (Philip Ettinger), is also his dealer. But noticing he’s down on his luck, Jason invites him to meet some guys he knows. They have money, he says, and like to help out. But this group’s leader, Dan (Adrien Brody), appears to see right through Ralphie’s tough exterior to the wounded child within. As Dan tells him to embrace his pain and anger and insist on his inner power, Ralphie is gradually drawn into their Manodrome, and his life starts to come apart at the seams.

Odessa Young and Jesse Eisenberg in Manodrome

What immediately works about Manodrome is Eisenberg, starting with his casting. Like Travis Bickle and The Narrator before him, Ralphie is a loser, just of a flavor more tailored to the 2020s. He feels out of touch with his peers and compensates by diving into gym culture, where the guy spotting him might compliment his reps and make him feel like he belongs. He is bro-y and mostly silent, perhaps in an effort to seem confident and mysterious. Eisenberg fully commits to the role, but anyone familiar with his nervy, cerebral, fast-talking screen persona might think him an odd fit, but it’s exactly what makes him ideal. No matter how hard Ralphie tries, you can look at him and know he doesn’t quite fit in. Using few words can’t hide the anxious self-talk that we never hear, but is plain in his every expression.

It seeped into my mood in a way I had to consciously shake off for a while afterward, and the difficulty of this achievement shouldn’t be taken for granted. But that affective impact could’ve been better wielded.

He makes for a compelling guide through an intentionally tough watch. Manodrome asks us to sit in how it would feel to devalue kindness and construe our ability to inflict pain, physical or emotional, as a sign of our own ability to shape the world. Ralphie doesn’t take to this as naturally as most of the group he joins, and with the movie grounded in his psyche, we also experience his fracturing under the pressure of Dan’s doctrine. It seeped into my mood in a way I had to consciously shake off for a while afterward, and the difficulty of this achievement shouldn’t be taken for granted. But that affective impact could’ve been better wielded. Taxi Driver and Fight Club soak us in their protagonists’ worldviews for many reasons, but one crucial effect is that we are pulled closer to identifying with them — we have to do the work of delineating ourselves. After watching Manodrome, I can’t say with any certainty whether Ralphie has a worldview at all.

Adrien Brody in Manodrome

That difference is critical. Consider Ralphie’s repeated encounters with immigrant men of different races and with gay men (often both simultaneously), motifs central to the movie’s understanding of the fragility and toxicity that can take hold of today’s white masculinity. The influence of Taxi Driver is visible here, recalling Travis’ encounters with Black people that expose the racism underlying his ideology. But because our understanding of his headspace is so complete, we as viewers are forced to reckon with our place in that dynamic. Scorsese’s film pulls us so close to Travis that it can be misconstrued as racist itself; ditto for Fight Club and glorifying male violence. These movies require viewers to bring their own morality, and leave us to consider how far it was made to bend under the pressure of these extreme perspectives. Manodrome takes no such risk; as uncomfortable as I was, I never felt the need to turn any of that inward.

Manodrome released in theaters November 10 and is available on demand November 17. The film is 95 minutes long and is rated R for violence, sexual content, language, graphic nudity, and some drug use.

Manodrome Release Date: 2023-11-10 Director: John Trengove Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Adrien Brody, Odessa Young, Sallieu Sesay, Philip Ettinger, Ethan Suplee, Evan Jonigkeit, Caleb Eberhardt Rating: R Runtime: 95 Minutes Genres: Drama, Thriller Writers: John Trengove Studio(s): Grindstone Entertainment Group, Capstone Studios, Felix Culpa, Liminal Content, Riverside Entertainment Distributor(s): Lionsgate