The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

I've been a big fan of Mark since he first started putting out his email which feels like over ten years ago?

I REALLY liked the book, and still think it is excellent.

This however was not so good.

It didn't feel right, didn't flow, wasn't especially interesting, I'm not sure how they got it so wrong to be honest?

I turned it off before the end, as it was borderline painful to watch at times.

It didn't feel like Mark's work, so I can only assume he didn't have that much input or get final approval?

I'd recommend spending your time with the audio book rather than watching this, you will get a LOT more out of it.

Reading The Subtle Art of Not Giving a #@% as a 25-year-old self-help junkie and a fan of counterculture I found the book amazing. It was self-help disguised as something better than personal development. It was beyond that. Rooting in ancient Buddhist philosophies, fueled with great present-day stories like the one about Metallica (that thing just hits me every time).

Fast-forward seven years. It's cold Saturday night. Snows. I've had a long day at work and coming home I browse new rentals eventually finding this piece. No need to check the trailer, I know it's going to be a good trip.

Boy was I wrong. It's a sad video essay about Mark's trauma caused by his drug use which eventually led to his parents' divorce. He discusses the concept of entitlement and fake reality portrayed on social media - but then shows his own travel photos narrated with stories about douchebags (including himself) with a tone that displays nothing but entitlement. The delivery of these stories is so dull that not even the great graphics help with the boredom those one-dimensional and scattered diary entries cause in the viewer. It's a tone of a person who feels their experiences and observations to be inherently interesting, without putting effort into crafting their public speaking or storytelling. Awkward laughter after talking proudly about ones encounters with women while simultaneously realizing that no one really gives a #@%!

Manson has stated earlier that behind his blog and books is a huge team of researchers. That's why the posts are always spot on with many interesting details. I believe like they weren't involved with this film, and I feel slightly betrayed.

In the theme of the documentary, accepting that your life is going to suck, I finished almost the whole film trying to observe if it's the film or me that sucks. I received the results, and I can tell you it wasn't me.

On the other hand, Mark shows in a sad way that what he preaches is true - he's not special.

I have not read the book so I don't have much to compare it to, but the film felt more of a speaker making a motivational speech than a documentary. The entire documentary was the author talking about his personal experiences, which didn't resonate with me in any way. I just didn't "give a f*#!" about his own stories so it seemed a little pretentious to me that he was making us listen to all these very basic stories from his past. I did like the in between of talking about entitlement and taking responsibility, but it would have been nice to also hear from professionals to hear their take on it.

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.

It won't take you long to wonder why you're watching this.

I've listened to some of the audiobook and it didn't feel this meandering or pointless.

Unlike superior theses like The Happiness Advantage which includes examples, anecdotes, psyche research and conclusions, this "film" is just a series of pointless anecdotes told by some random bloke in a chair.

If I was with this guy at a party, I'd find an excuse to walk away from him. His anecdotes-whether personal to him or gleaned from somewhere else-have no conclusions.

If the overall message to this thing is that "life isn't perfect, make the most of what you've got", then it was pretty much summed up at the beginning.

I thought this would be an interesting watch. It wasn't.