‘Night Stage’ review: Sexy queer drama from Brazil has thematic smarts to match

Dirs/scr: Felipe Matzembacher, Marcio Reolon. Brazil. 2025. 117mins

In Porto Alegre, southern Brazil, a promising theatre actor and a rising star of native politics join by way of a same-sex hookup app for what’s alleged to be a one evening stand, solely to find that their shared love for attainable discovery intensifies their rapport. For his or her third function, writer-directors Felipe Matzembacher and Marcio Reolon (Seashore, Exhausting Paint) discover how queer folks typically solely really feel in a position to be authentically themselves in the event that they don’t stay within the public eye. For those who do (or need to), it’s principally obligatory to suppress any trace of their sexual proclivities.

A sensible drama concerning the insane worth {that a} queer particular person has to pay to realize a degree of success within the public eye

Although the screenplay is occassionally a bit schematic, Evening Stage is an attractive drama with thematic smarts to match. It premieres in Berlin’s Panorama, and will see curiosity from festivals and distributors past the same old queer suspects. 

The open-faced Matias (Gabriel Faryas) and tenebrous Fabio (Henrique Barreira) are roommates and fellow actors in a brand new theatre work. Notably, their characters are the final two standing on the finish of the ultimate act, with one having to pressure the opposite off a ledge earlier than declaiming the triumphant closing monologue. To maintain issues recent, the director (Larissa Sanguiné) insists that, every evening, they need to decide who will get the opposite one off the ledge and delivers the ultimate speech. (No factors for guessing this can play a pivotal position afterward, when the stakes are raised, in one of many few cases through which a dramatic setup feels a bit laboured.) 

When Fabio is invited to a casting for a nationwide TV sequence, the bold Matias decides to worm his means into the occasion, regardless that he’s been explicitly ignored by the casting director (Kaya Rodrigues). This Eve Harrington transfer pays off as he lastly lands the lead. That’s nice information, besides that the producers anticipate him to wash up his social media and principally conceal his queer id — lived very a lot out within the open in his provincial theatre bubble — so he might be palatable to a nation-wide viewers introduced up on telenovelas. 

In parallel, the dreadlocked cutie has a nighttime hookup with the hunky, bearded redhead Rafael (Cirillo Luna), who already insists on being as discreet as attainable. The rationale for this emerges solely later, when Matias realises Rafael is a squeaky-clean political candidate not solely working for mayor, however prone to win. Although it ought to have been a one evening stand, each get hooked on one another after they realise they just like the hazard of discovery related to intercourse in public locations. However as their careers take off, this turns into more and more dangerous.

What’s each fascinating and clever about Evening Stage is that the movie’s dramatic stress doesn’t solely depend on the attainable discovery of their secret. Whereas the movie has clear parts of the thriller style and revenge films, it’s also a sensible drama concerning the insane worth {that a} queer particular person has to pay to realize a degree of success within the public eye. “Folks don’t essentially care about others being homosexual anymore,” one of many characters says, “however having intercourse in public is a distinct matter.” However what if, Matzembacher and Reolon surprise, these two parts are inextricably linked? What if the subversive streak in being queer is probably much more necessary than the gender of the particular person you’re sleeping with? 

Cinematographer Luciana Baseggio (Fogaréu) captures the characters’ agony and ecstasy in attractive closeups but it surely’s her widescreen tableaux that actually showcase the administrators’ expertise when it comes to their mise-en-scene. Music decisions and enhancing really feel totally up to date. Solid is interesting and chosen with an ironic wink, as Faryas is a relative newcomer and it’s Luna who is understood for his work in TV.