Gentle, 2022.
Written and directed by László Csuja and Anna Nemes.
Starring Eszter Csonka, György Turós, and Csaba Krisztik.
SYNOPSIS:
Female bodybuilder Edina is ready to sacrifice everything for the dream she shares with her life partner and trainer Adam: to win the Miss Olympia. The odd love she finds on her way makes her see the difference between her dreams and her true self.
Anna Eszter Nemes and László Csuja’s drama Gentle explores the physical and emotional toll paid by bodybuilders – particularly female ones – on a daily basis, serving as both a compassionate character study and a concerning portrait of ambition’s dangerous potential.
When we first meet bodybuilder Edina (Eszter Csonka), she wins a competition which allows her to qualify for the world bodybuilding championships; an exciting prospect, but one that requires Edina to commit body-and-soul to the cause 24/7. With the help of her partner Adam (György Turós), himself a former champion bodybuilder, she must hit the gym hard, deny herself the food she wants most, and pump her body full of steroids and supplements.
It’s neither cheap nor is it fulfilling for Edina, who slowly begins to resent the lack of control she has in her own life, and amid spiralling finances decides to start a side-gig working as an escort. While Edina keeps this new line of employment secret from Adam, she finds herself becoming financially liberated and appreciating that, perhaps, there’s more for her out there than merely sculpting her physique.
Nemes and Csuja’s film opens with a quote defining “contest shape” – that is, when a competing bodybuilder loses 74% of their body fat and becomes severely dehydrated in order to maximise their muscular definition. It’s an unsettling primer for a film that, while not explicitly critiquing the industry itself, captures the debilitating sacrifices upper-echelon athletes make for their sport (or art?).
Bodybuilding has had almost no play in cinema either “arthouse” or mainstream – save for the legendary Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring documentary Pumping Iron, 2012’s Danish drama Teddy Bear, and a few scattered others – but Gentle confirms it to be a ripe subject for rich, pathos-laden drama.
Bodybuilding is after all a field so frequently maligned in pop-culture, and this is doubly true for the female equivalent, where they’re often de-feminised, even de-humanised, for partaking in the practise. This film is arguably at its best when detailing the brutal technical rigours of creating a chiselled physique; the means through which muscle groups are balanced in form, and the soul-crushing levels of exhaustion that come with both relentless workouts and strict diets.
Beyond eating 2kg of chicken per day without even a hint of chocolate, there’s the dangerous and costly cocktails of supplements, which threaten both Edina’s physical health and financial wellbeing, leading to her taking the aforementioned escorting gig.
Much as it is a memorable examination of a unique past-time, Gentle is also a potent and singular relationship drama, Edina and Adam’s romance a somewhat concerning stew of deceptive tenderness and uneven power dynamics. Adam, a vaunted legend of the bodybuilding world, seems more invested in Edina’s success than even herself, pitching a fit if she sneaks so much as a square of chocolate.
And yet, there’s certainly the sense that he has nothing but genuine love for her, no matter that he and Edina lie to one another about their extra-curricular activities; in Adam’s case, he tries out for a job as a stripper to generate funds for Edina’s supplements.
It’s fitting thematically that Edina’s journey is all about regaining agency and control in her life; this impossibly powerful person is evidently lost, and by surreptitiously taking on specialist clients for non-penetrative sexual encounters, realises there’s more to her life than her decade-long commitment to bodybuilding. One client, a businessman with a peculiar hide-and-seek kink, proves especially formative for Edina in forcing her to consider what she really wants. This takes on greater urgency once Edina learns the true physical toll of her life’s work.
Nemes and Csuja’s film simply wouldn’t function without the presence of a real bodybuilder in the lead role, and as the crossover between bodybuilder and actor unsurprisingly isn’t too large – where would they find the time? – the filmmakers instead hired non-actor Eszter Csonka for the job.
Csonka is a totally transfixing screen presence from the first moment we see her; her striking physique speaks for itself, while her ambiguous facial expressions and severe demeanour garner immediate interest. Edina pants with anxiety before heading out to her initial competition, an indication of the inner vulnerability she conceals so well beneath her muscled form – a testament to Csonka’s impressively naturalistic, mostly internalised performance.
The filmmakers skillfully capture Csonka both in statuesque wide shots paying tribute to her hard graft and intimate close-ups of her marble-shaped face. While the visual construction is generally fairly unfussy, it certainly grounds us in this world with Edina by sensibly getting out of its own way.
Though the script could’ve dug deeper into the underworld of bodybuilding, Gentle covers a respectable amount of ground for a mere 92-minute drama, training the focus tightly on its fascinatingly unconventional protagonist. A literally Strong Female Character, if you like.
Often gruelling but always empathetic, Gentle does for female bodybuilding what The Wrestler did for grapping – shine a light on a subculture totally under-explored by cinema. Non-professional actor Eszter Csonka is terrific.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
