Motel Destino Review: A Little Slice of Purgatory

Karim Aïnouz’s Motel Destino is a sexy and colourful little crime thriller. It’s not going to engage the brain too deeply, but it’s a lot of fun.

It has a colourful, campy vibe that’s at odds with the narrative’s plot of deceit and backstabbing, but it makes the film more memorable and enjoyable than it otherwise would have been. It may be chewing gum for the eyes, but it sure is tasty.

Iago Xavier plays Heraldo, a low-ranking lieutenant in a criminal gang. He wants out of this life, but naturally the script demands he go through the necessary rite of ‘one last job’. However, before Heraldo can even go to collect a debt, he gets sidetracked by an older woman at a club and led away to a one-night stand at the titular motel. The script prioritizes the physical and emotional expression of the characters over narrative beats. Co-writer Mauricio Zacharias often writes characters whose libidos lead them astray (Passages, Love For Sale). Those films offer more challenging material than Motel Destino, but they’re not necessarily as fun.

Heraldo awakens in a red-lit room at the Destino, but is locked in until he can pay his bill. He threatens receptionist Dayana (Nataly Rocha) to get out, but he’s already late to the hit, and blood has spilled. The script isn’t above indulging in familiar beats to get to where it wants to go, namely back to the Motel Destino. Heraldo decides to hide out there until the heat from the botched hit dies down. Aïnouz has a fondness for stories of people in liminal spaces, from the frustrated Euridice in Invisible Life to Henry VIII’s final wife Catherine Parr in Firebrand. Heraldo is now caught in a neon-tinged nightmare that he cannot leave, soundtracked by the amorous moans of the various guests that use it for a quick tryst.

Like any purgatory, the motel balances out Heraldo’s guilt and hardships with constant temptation. The Brazilian heat seeps into the motel rooms to infect everyone within with a horny lease of life. Aïnouz emphasizes the devil-may-care attitude of the motel’s guests and staff; even the donkeys in the yard are getting it on. Dayana has eyes for the hot young man in her midst, but her husband and manager Elias (Fábio Assunção) is forever in the way. There’s nothing complex in this illicit love triangle, essentially playing out a classic film noir plot like The Postman Always Rings Twice. Still, the actors keep you focused. Xavier is solid in his feature debut, and is suitably handsome and buff for Aïnouz’s erotic vision. Rocha and Assunção have plenty of fun as the older couple finding the humour in their sordid enterprise. 

Between the heat and the extra bodies passing through the hotel, tempers and basic instincts are forever being tested in Motel Destino. The thrill lies in seeing which will flare up first, amidst the increasingly loud moans of the guests and the neon glows of the room lights. DoP Hélène Louvart embraces the aesthetic, and makes sure the walls of the Destino pop. For all its narrative conventions, there are fascinating tensions in the design of Motel Destino. Those candy-coloured rooms are both enticing and foreboding, as you wonder what those lights are hiding. For all the men and women passing through the motel, the camera’s fixation on Xavier’s features lends it a queer undertone.

Motel Destino is unabashedly sexual, to the point that its surface pleasures are its main selling point. This is intentional; when the film premiered at Cannes last year, critics bemoaned its shallowness, but the absence of complication can be a breath of fresh air amidst some of the stuffier offerings of a festival, and it’s good to see that blockbusters aren’t the only means of escapism a cinema can offer right now. Aïnouz and the script let the threat from Heraldo’s gang ebb and flow just enough to occasionally beef up the tension, ensuring Heraldo stays put and the sexual tension can continue to thicken. 

Motel Destino is enough fun that you might forgive its final act for succumbing to generic plotting, upending the quick pace it had enjoyed up to that point. Yet even then, Aïnouz recognizes the need to sex things up, concluding with the colourful end credits set to a thumping club beat. While you might be able to foresee how Motel Destino will end, the enjoyment lies not in the climax, but in the journey to get there.

Motel Destino will be released in UK & Irish cinemas on May 9, 2025.