MOTEL DESTINO
Directed by Karim Aïnouz
Certificate: 15
☆☆☆☆

THIS film sweats its way through a plot that has a grotty motel, whose calling card is basically somewhere you can go to have sex at its centre. A roadside den of body-melding delights, it’s not a destination on a tourist trail, rather an out-of-the-way place people can transport themselves to anywhere they damn well please, if they’ve checked in properly.

We meet Heraldo (Iago Xavier) in this run-down Brazilian seaside town. It’s doubtful it has seen better days, and has always been a crust of a place: Heraldo wants to head to São Paolo and find a new way of living – hustling for the local mob isn’t a long-term career prospect he fancies.

He and his brother Jorge (Renan Capivara) have a plan to commit a big-money heist – collecting a debt owed to their kingpin master – and then disappear with the mobsters money.

But Heraldo spends the night before indulging at Motel Destino with a stranger who leaves before light with his possessions and ensures he misses his alarm.

His brother doesn’t make it and Heraldo suddenly finds his hangover is the least of his problems as some gruff types want him to explain how he was fortunately absent from a job that went disastrously wrong.

Where can he go? Well, the manageress Dayana (Nataly Rocha) has come-on eyes and so he tries his luck. Can he hide at the motel until things calm down?

Dayana’s husband Elias (Fabio Assunção), played with seedy style, lurks as the pair embark on a sticky affair.

You know this is not heading anywhere comfortable and the urge to scream and run at the handsome lead is almost impossible to ignore.

Dark corners and neon lights create shades that are mimicked by the leads’ behaviours.

Writer Magnus Mills wrote a wonderfully odd novel All Quiet On The Orient Express, a claustrophobic tale about a young man drawn to a place and unable to extract himself from the tentacles that seek to subtly tie him down.

Motel Destino, with its wipe-clean surfaces, collections of sex toys, mirrored ceilings and grotty scent in the air is a horrible place to find oneself seeking sanctuary, has a similar sense about it – the motel becomes an overbearing and oppressive lead character in its own right.

Original and atmospheric, with gorgeous direction and performances that are true, you may not fancy checking into this destination in real life, but it’s a grand stage for cinematic drama.