Mansome was added to Netflix Instant about a week ago or so. It’s a new documentary from Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me) and produced by Jason Bateman and Will Arnett. The film examines what it means to be manly in today’s age of manscaping and grooming products.
Arnett and Bateman start the film off by entering a day spa for their full day of pampering. While they’re being groomed they begin to discuss whether or not it’s manly for them to be doing this. That’s where the real documentary begins. The film is broken up into different sections, each one dealing with a specific aspect of being a “real man” such as The Beard, The Mustache, The Hair, and The Body.
At the end of each section we come back to Arnett and Bateman in the spa. They provide a lot of the film’s comedy. It’s nice to see them back together before the new season of Arrested Development comes out on Netlix later this year. It’s also apparent that their segments are unscripted as they try to fight off laughing at each other and keep egging on their masseuses to prove who can take a rougher massage.
The actual documentary part of the film is entertaining, and full of interviews with celebrities and everyday people alike. Judd Apatow, Zach Galifianakis, and John Waters are just some of the men featured. The Editor-In-Chief of Cosmopolitan is also involved, as well as a few cultural anthropologists for good measure.
The sections of the film all center around different people. For instance, Adam Garone, the founder of Movember, is followed for the section on mustaches. Jack Passion, a champion beardsman, takes the film into the world of competitive beards. Professional wrestler Shawn Daivari shows how important it is to sculpt and shave the body in wrestling. The film even features a portion on body dysmorphic disorder by following New Yorker, Ricky Manchanda on his quest for perfection.
Overall Mansome is entertaining and at times pretty funny. It clocks in at 82 minutes, so if you have some time to kill I suggest that you give it a look. I do have one complaint though. The film lingers on the people it highlights in each section for just a little too long. I feel that it begins to border on mocking them rather than being informative. Especially when following Ricky Manchanda, where body dysmorphic disorder is never mentioned, but it’s obvious that something along those lines is going on.