Motel Destino (2024)

CinemaSerf

6.0

Mar 2, 2025

Twenty year old “Heraldo” (Iago Xavier) is hoping to leave his seaside Brazilian home and head to São Paolo and make a fresh start. Thing is, his elder brother “Jorge” (Renan Capivara) and he owe the local queenpin “Bambina” (Fabiola Liper) one last favour. “Heraldo” goes out and gets laid in the town’s knocking-shop-cum-motel and awakens to discover that his brother tried to do the job en seul and, well now the young man has to find somewhere to hide. Fortunately, he made a bit of an impression at the motel with it’s owner “Dayana” (Nataly Rocha) and so she agrees to shelter him whilst her br…

They say sex sells, and that’s certainly true for this film noir erotic thriller from Brazil in which passionate stirrings pervade virtually every aspect of the narrative. In this latest offering from writer-director Karim Aïnouz, the filmmaker tells a story largely cut from the same cloth as “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1946, 1981) but with supercharged volumes of high-octane sexuality splashed all over it. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that other than the fact that this is about all the picture has to offer. Indeed, the primary storyline here is otherwise so thin that it’s pract…