The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fu*k: Movie Review

Cast: Mark Manson
Director: Nathan Price

Feeling very much like a self-help lecture writ large, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fu*k is of course based on Mark Manson's best-selling volume. The 2017 self-help book sold more than 15 million copies worldwide.

Exploring society's obsession with the pursuit of happiness and the endless misery the selfishness causes, Nathan Price's doco is a sleekly produced, slickly edited piece of well shot 90s MTV-inspired film that mixes archives and contemporary material for maximum effect.

Yet at times, this piece can't escape its Powerpoint-esque edges as it sells a philosophy that when you realise you're going to die one day, nothing else really matters, but we seem to spend our lives obsessed with stuff that ultimately is neither here nor there.

Using Manson as a talking head, and no experts, means the film has the atmosphere of a jovial lecture, given how affable Manson actually is throughout. Whether it's detailing his past indiscretions or liberally swearing away at the camera, he's a commendable and relatively commandable presence throughout. 

But in truth, it's in the editing that this doco soars.

Slickly produced imagery that's all handsomely shot and mixed with contemporary footage of our societal narcissism and social media obsessions, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fu*k really does make a case for how shallow we've become.

With its scattershot deliverance of bon mots such as "Avoid gluten, but don't piss off Putin", the film's sheen is hyper-stylised Insta-style messaging that bizarrely seems to fall into the kind of territory it's looking to dismiss.

It doesn't help that Manson's whole ethos and final message is punctuated and deflated by the film's final shot and its punkish rebelliousness that it wants to simultaneously mock and celebrate its own smugness.

Over its 100 minutes run time, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fu*k presents its case jovially and with such polish that you may end up being converted to its new emperor's clothes. That's no bad thing and is a credit to Price, Manson and those involved who know how to position the message and how to target the viewers.

But in truth, if you're older and perhaps a little wiser, there's nothing spectacularly new in Manson's  theories, but the film presents a good tonic for the self-obsessed looking for a soul cleanse as the New Year begins.