The plot summary up there reveals the main twist. I try to avoid more spoiling.
We see an androgynous person working out.
She is Lea Pearl, a women's physique athlete, lifting weights, taking pills, dehydrating herself before a competition.
She is accompanied by her personal trainer Al, a limping former bodybuilder, who is used to work with winners. Al requires total commitment. He doses steroids, water, encouraging words, anything needed to win, right amount, right time. One of his former athletes still shows unhealthy dependence on this father/mother/lover figure.
Lea's relationship with Al is more professional. She has a no-nonsense attitude. Training more than posing is her thing. There are health issues though, and Al is negotiating a deal with a shady sponsor.
Women's bodybuilding has been at odds with normative femininity. To compensate a lack of feminine fat, a muscular body is decorated with ultrafeminine elements for a competition. Curiously, I find Lea most masculine while posing on the podium in a sequinned bikini, with makeup, jewellery, false eyelashes and nails, and most feminine while sweating unkempt in a gym.
Things happen mostly inside a hotel, the venue of the competition. Actual poses are cut short. We see more behind-the-scenes preparations, male and female bodybuilders of different sizes mingling with each other or resting in plastic covered corridors after spray tanning. They seem to be a community giving a helping hand when needed.
Then Lea's ex turns up, with a child she had. Ben lives with the son on the little money he gets, mostly by doing petty crimes. Lea hasn't seen them for years and doesn't seem to miss anything in her past. She has a building project of her own.
The boy is skinny and pale, with dark circles under his eyes like his father. He looks extremely frail in front of his tanned and beefy mother, but is tougher than you would expect. It is fascinating to follow Lea's and the boy's interaction.
The visually rich film has a human undertone. Themes like beauty standards, gender roles, parenthood and control of one's life are handled in a nuanced way. French filmmaker Elsa Amiel has worked long as an assistant director. Pearl (2018) is her first full-length independent film. Swiss bodybuilder Julia Föry as Lea and Vidal Arzoni as Joseph, the son, are very convincing in their first film roles. The rest of the cast do good work too. I have seen something intriguing.
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