Do terrorists have small penises? This is one of many jarring unknowables that comes up in Daniel Lombroso’s frustratingly unfocused documentary about men who go to great and painful lengths to get a penis enlargement in the tenuous hope that it will make their lives more satisfying.
The film is less a survey of an industry than it is a snapshot of three men in one corner of it. There’s Bill Moore, an entrepreneurial clinic owner whose gentle bedside manner comes in handy as he injects his clients’ penis shafts with expensive filler.
There’s David Smith, a kind-eyed queer man and OnlyFans creator who claims a botched procedure left his penis lumpy. (His doctor is interviewed, and disagrees.) Estranged from his evangelical mother, Smith seeks help from Moore and, in a curious twist, enters into a relationship with Moore and his husband.
Then there’s Ruben Ramirez, an affable father of five and an aspiring comedian. What makes his story most affecting isn’t that he wants more girth. It’s that his longing barely masks deep-seated shame and emotional trauma, the same torments that haunt almost every man in this humanely-observed film. Watching Ramirez doing comedy at a nearly empty restaurant is just as difficult to take as seeing Moore inject Ramirez’s penis with treatments he can’t afford.
Lombroso examines the psychology (and pathologies) of penis enlargement with sensitivity. But his film feels ickily close to being an advertisement for Moore’s business. It would have benefited from a clearer thesis and a scope beyond a small sample of men.
Manhood Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. In theaters.
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