Mansome - 2 smiles

“Mansome,” a documentary directed by Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), is a light-hearted look at male grooming, more of a first-person journal or series of vignettes that doesn’t delve too deeply into analysis. Spurlock interviews some celebrities about their attitudes toward masculinity and grooming: Paul Rudd is typically funny, Judd Apatow is appealing and Zach Galifianakis steals the show. (When asked to rate his looks on a scale of 1 to 10, Galifianakis responds that some people find him ‘a strong 2.’) Spurlock includes his own decision to shave off his mustache, which reduces his 5-year-old son to tears. He follows a professional ‘beardsman,’ Jack Passion, who travels the world exhibiting his three-foot long beard in competitions. Then there’s the elegantly coiffed Manhattan clothing buyer who describes himself as the ultimate ‘meterosexual,’ perhaps making up for his teen years as a Sikh immigrant outcast in middle America. And, of course, there’s the entrepreneur who has created a lotion-like product called Fresh Balls: The Solution for Men. (Don’t ask.)

Spurlock chops the movie into irrelevant chapters about beards, mustaches, hair and so on. Some of the big picture stuff comes up almost by accident, but Spurlock doesn’t even pretend to care. The American brand of masculinity that the movie is addressing is not defined nor does Spurlock investigate the importance of class distinctions. And the few culture-clash specimens that turn up, the New York metrosexual of Sikh origins and an Arab pro wrestler who has to go through a whole-body shave before performing as villain ‘Abdul Bashir,’ are given only cursory treatment. In addition, Spurlock sticks far too long with a framing device in which Jason Bateman and Will Arnett go to a spa and engage in uneasy (and unfunny) homoerotic banter. “Mansome” tackles the enormous subject of contemporary vanity as a series of quirky anecdotes, which are often entertaining in themselves but devoid of any intelligent analysis or historical understanding.  5/20/12