The chief crusading interest of a Morgan Spurlock documentary has usually been Morgan Spurlock. Perhaps as an attempt to work against that, he doesn’t show himself that much in “Mansome,” although someone refers to Spurlock’s mustache, unironically, as “iconic.”
The movie purports to be a lighthearted look at changing notions of masculinity and appearance. But unless you find something intrinsically hilarious about a man getting a pedicure, laughs are scarce. Celebrities, including executive producers Will Arnett and Jason Bateman, hang around to make deadpan observations. In between, amiable eccentrics of varying degrees of drabness enter beard-growth contests, market groin deodorant and shave their entire bodies on camera.
There’s definitely some unexamined, patronizing sexism in this movie — mainly chagrin that it isn’t only women who are expected to waste their time on such nonsense as moisturizing. The fact that male appearance has always been just as dependent on the whims of fashion breaks the surface a couple of times, then disappears.
There’s a young Sikh fashion plate whose evolving relationship to his appearance has interest, and John Waters probably never gave a boring interview in his life. But “Mansome” is basically a reality-TV episode, with similar production values and precisely the same depth of perception.