Sauna: Magnus Juhl Andersen and Nina Rask – Photo: Christian Geisnaes
The placid romantic drama Sauna, from director Mathias Broe, confronts provocative subject matter with admirable sensitivity and restraint. Based on the novel by Mads Ananda Lodahl, published in 2021, the film, figuratively speaking, never raises its voice telling the story of Johan (Magnus Juhl Andersen) and William (Nina Rask), a cis gay man and trans man, respectively, whose budding romance faces distinct challenges, even within the queer community.
First, the film winds through a concise, if not that creative setup depicting Johan’s lonely life. A small town single gay relatively new to Copenhagen, he’s sociable and outgoing, and so far unfulfilled by the cold, hard sex sessions with random guys he meets at bars.
Browsing Grindr between his shifts as an attendant at the gay sauna Adonis, he finds William, who comes over for a date. Only then does Johan realize, during an intimate moment, that William is trans. Following that initial awkwardness, the two quickly develop even deeper intimacy as lovers, attempting to be a couple despite their own differences, as well as the unwelcome biases and bigotry of others.
Marking Johan’s efforts to adjust, the narrative also carefully delineates William’s specific experience as someone still transitioning. Wearing a chest binder while saving up for top surgery, and networking with his trans friends to stay supplied with expensive meds, William has plenty already on his plate without also having to hold Johan’s hand through the highs and lows of dating a trans guy in this world.
One of the lows, for both of them, comes when William is harshly rejected from a space considered safe and open to gay men. Directly raising the issue of transphobia, the incident compels Johan, and ostensibly the audience, to profoundly consider the parameters of gender and sexuality.
Andersen and Rask certainly generate a heated chemistry onscreen that transcends pat categorization. And, while Broe hardly traffics in joy and romance, there are sequences capturing the pair’s glow of infatuation, maybe love — as in a mesmerizing club scene that, in a quick edit, gives way to the peaceful morning after, sun rising on new possibilities.
Johan and William find ways that they fit together, which Andersen and Rask reflect with ease in their physicality. Their characters relate to one another as two gay men, and thus the film feels like a gay love story — for better and for worse.
Too early, the film shows its melodramatic hand, with Johan overcompensating as a trans ally and appearing perhaps not mature enough to be the partner that William might need. Johan sacrifices generously, but also commits himself to foolish choices that endanger his well-being and William’s, and also defy credulity. The script paints him a little too stupid at times.
Ultimately, Sauna devolves into a boilerplate queer morality tale, as Johan spins out in a booze-fueled night on the town. Debauchery ends for him the same as those nights so often do in LGBTQ indies that climax with the protagonist’s plunge to rock bottom. There must have been more original ways for Johan and William’s story to go.
Sauna (★★☆☆☆) is available to rent or own on all major digital platforms, including Prime Video.
I remember doing the time warp in a living room. As a gay kid in the suburbs of Seattle who loved black-and-white monster movies like Bride of Frankenstein, I was drawn to The Rocky Horror Picture Show in late-night viewings on cable. Overloaded in image and sound, Rocky Horror had everything: a spooky old mansion, creepy caretakers, a young couple in danger, rock and roll.
And still more: Patricia Quinn's blood red, disembodied lips. Barry Bostwick's buttoned-up Brad Majors dressed down to his high-waisted tighty-whities. Tim Curry's Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a mad scientist in fishnets and heels. And, of course, that writhing bundle of muscles, bulging in gold booties and briefs, the credit to Frank's Frankensteinian genius, Peter Hinwood's Rocky Horror, the film's titular Adonis.
“I hope to one day make a movie musical,” says Tina Romero. “I would love to do a fantasy piece. I am trying to put all the pots on the burner and see which one I can get to boil. Because it's a miracle to make a movie, and it's a miracle to get all the pieces in place. But I am salivating to make another one.”
For now, the LGBTQ world — and beyond — is salivating to see Romero’s debut effort, Queens of the Dead, a vibrant, unapologetically queer take on the zombie genre her late father turned into a horror institution.
Made in 1968, George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead remains a truly terrifying game-changer in horror. It’s the film all others bow down to, replete with classic lines (“They’re coming to get you, Barbara”) and gruesome depictions of zombies feeding on human viscera. Both Night and its 1978 follow-up, Dawn of the Dead, formed the first two parts of a trilogy that spawned dozens of imitators, remakes, and even a second trilogy from George himself.
The new HBO series Heated Rivalry has ignited social media, with fans openly thirsting after its leads and critics debating the show's authenticity.
Based on Rachel Reid's Game Changers novels, the series follows two elite rival hockey players, Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie), whose off-ice tension turns into a sexual, quasi-romantic relationship.
The hockey drama wastes no time diving into the rivals' intense lust for each other. Some viewers were surprised to see the usual slow-burn trope swapped for an immediate blaze.
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