My Own Man

A personal essay that pushes the boundaries of real life into loosely-scripted drama—and raises questions about what constitutes a documentary—My Own Man is filmmaker David Sampliner's self-flagellating story about not feeling particularly masculine at the age of 40. The film begins semi-comically with an old friend of the director's recalling a night that he got mugged, while an off-camera Sampliner admits that he personally hid nearby during the assault rather than help his pal. From there, Sampliner confesses to the audience that he has never felt quite as manly as other men he knows, while a series of observations by friends and family confirm a general (and dreaded) perception of him as a “soft” male. When Sampliner's wife becomes pregnant with a boy, he decides that now is the time to find his inner alpha male, and he joins a “warrior weekend” with other lost guys—banging drums and so forth. Sampliner also starts working out, turns to hunting (at one point shooting a buck from a treetop perch), and tries a few other remedies. But in the end his journey inevitably takes him back to his childhood and the father whose professional success came at the price of alienating his children. My Own Man certainly tackles an interesting subject—the definition of masculinity—but viewers will be suspicious that many of Sampliner's experiments in testosterone-fueled activities are designed for the camera rather than any legitimate personal quest. Optional. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)