Review of Robert W. Gray’s film Entropic, in which the most beautiful man in the world undertakes a strange experiment with his most faithful friend.

Entropic is a singular film that will not appeal to everyone. It is experienced somewhat like an artistic performance. Highly conceptual, it raises a whole host of questions and may stimulate some as much as it irritates others. Here, we were carried away by it.

An unsettling experiment involving desire and beauty in Entropic

We follow Aaron (Khalid Klein), who agrees to accompany his best friend, whom we assume he is in love with, in a strange experiment. The friend in question, M (Stephen Huszar), is none other than the most beautiful man in the world. What appears on paper to be a gift is, for him, a curse. M has always realised that people want his beauty, that something is always expected or hoped for from him, and that it is difficult to have friends because desire always ends up seeping into the relationship at some point. Constantly reduced to the status of an object and an object of desire, he wants to move on. He plans to move away and make a fresh start, but before doing so, he has imagined a strange experiment: inviting everyone who gravitates around him and desires him, and making himself available to them. While he sleeps, he offers himself to them, giving them free rein for 40 minutes each under the supervision of his friend Aaron. Men and women file past, daring to say what they would never have said, expressing their desire and frustration, and exploring their unfulfilled fantasies…

A film by Robert W. Gray, between fascination, discomfort and eroticism

Obviously, the film raises questions because, even if the process is voluntary, M gives himself to others while asleep, creating legitimate discomfort. The unease persists from the beginning to the end of the film, with a very particular atmosphere that lies somewhere between abrasive male eroticism and an immoral, uncomfortable quality.

Beauty as power, obsession and curse

The viewer is brought back to their own conception of beauty and their relationship with it. The different people who come to visit M allow for a wide variety of reactions: some explore fantasies and fetishes, reveal deep feelings, or express their powerlessness in the face of inaccessible beauty… Beauty here is fascination and curse, power and burden, inevitably unfair and constantly magnetic.

The relationship between Aaron and M at the heart of the film

Beyond the universal introspections into the body, beauty and desire, what is primarily at stake here is the relationship between Aaron and M. While he is there to help his friend and supervise the cathartic sessions with all the men and women who have been after him, he is the first concerned, unable not to love and desire the one who would like them to be friends without ambiguity. This experiment could then become the ultimate confrontation.

Direct, sensitive and disturbing, with an immaculate whiteness on screen concealing the dark corners of desire, Entropic is an unusual cinematic object worth a look.

Film produced in 2019 and still unreleased in France at the time of writing

Other films about beauty, obsession and desire

• Saltburn
• Death in Venice
• Purple Noon
• The Talented Mr Ripley