La sottile arte di fare quello che ca**o ti pare

He spoke of how his life was turned upside down by an incident at school and how his parents broke up but didn't see any correlation with his own actions. He spoke of his best friend who lived a "dream life" that was entirely false but failed to understand the guy was just a classic psychopath and not a role model. He spoke how he used to be shallow and self centred but now here he is in a film dedicated to his world view featuring no-one but himself. I totally agree with this main point that it's foolish to compare yourself with what's found on YT etc but I found the the guy himself quite sad.

Manson tries to convey to us practical wisdom from his life and the modern era that is controversial and confusing.

His narrative is one of first world drama where he discovers himself. It's okay, but not very well thought out or scientifically backed. I think one would do much better watching an Alain de Botton TED Talk.

True some ideas are better placed in a motion picture narrative. Here the Director has used a mixture of 1980s BBC clips and B-grade acting scenes. It just hasn't cut the mustard for this critical reviewer.

For a better experience I'd suggest 'Ravi Patel's Pursuit of Happiness' (2020)

I didn't want to give this a bad review.

In 2019, I was going through one of the hardest times in my life and reading The Subtle Art was one of the few things that really helped me come to terms and .

I will say that the film does do well to carry all of the witty cynicisms over from the book,. And I can hand pick a few a new additions I did enjoy that do stop this from going lower than a 3/10.

That said, without enough focus on the reasons and purposes for us hearing these anecdotes, it just becomes a disorganised mess that, if you've not read the book, just sounds like someone saying "you're not special" without the "but that's okay" to follow it up with.

The 'self help' part of this 'counter intuitive self help documentary' was heavily glossed over and massively lost a lot of the appeal that caused the books warranted success. Maybe it's just that the genre doesn't translate successfully into this media, but overall, very disappointed.

My advise to anyone reading this review; pop on the audiobook and watch a 10 hour YouTube video of cats or something. You'll have a much better experience,

It's always so easy for people like Mark to tell us the how and why and what we should do to live a better life when they have $14,000,000 in their back pocket.

Seriously, his ideas aren't new, they're just old ideas repackaged. If you have t figured out how to be a good person before you watch this, this film ain't gonna help. If you think your a pretty good and kind person before seeing this film, it'll just come off as sanctimonious nonsense.

Listen to the audio book, as this certainly is a case of the book being better than the movie.

And the 3 stars are for Disappointment Panda. He's the one thing that kept me engaged.

A drawn out monologue that fails to engage with anything philosophical, responding only to anecdotes.

It's odd that this philosophy only works with numerical identifiers of success. There is no sense of inner fulfilment, no enjoyment from the attempt of trying something new. You can only be good or bad at something.

It's both critical of late stage capitalism and completely complicit. Perhaps justifying flogging these books.

Mark Manson loves the use of binary, there is little to no room for nuance & balance. Promoting a circular philosophy that can only lead to self-pity & loathing.

I'd offer this binary: watch this or speak to someone outside a club at 3am.