Sauna

Watched at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Far away from being an masterpiece but director Mathias Broe created a honest tale of sexuality, transgender identity, and romance without feeling stereotypical or forced. Placed with great camerawork and sound designs, Broe offers some interesting writing that explores it's themes pretty well that offers a good insight to the characters and purpose. Alongside with the good performances and dialogue from the cast members, Broe understands identity and conflicted romance, which creates an engaging fest of love, entertainment and observation.

Broe is still in need of some learning as certain structures felt a bit slow. Especially with certain character decisions that are questionable and weird, which made some of the purpose of its themes and concepts feeling a bit out of place and unsure of itself. But Broe succeeds with his first debut.

This film is an utter disaster from start to finish. The acting is abysmal, with performances so wooden and unconvincing they frequently pull you out of any semblance of immersion. It's truly baffling how such a collection of lackluster portrayals made it to the screen. Every line delivery feels forced, every emotional beat rings false, leaving you with a profound sense of cringe.

Beyond the performances, the film's core message or, perhaps more accurately, its bleak vision of the future, is profoundly disturbing and presented with a heavy-handedness that borders on insulting. The "future for humanity" it depicts is not only horrifying but also feels oddly simplistic and uninspired, lacking any real nuance or depth. It's a toe-curling thought to imagine this grim, unoriginal premise is what the filmmakers consider a poignant commentary. The entire experience is a testament to how not to craft a compelling narrative or elicit genuine thought. There's really nothing redeeming about this cinematic misstep; it's a chore to watch and an unfortunate waste of time.

Johan (a very hot Magnus Juhl Andersen) works at a men-only sauna in Copenhagen. He easily gets hookups, but may be interested in longer-term intimacy. Inattention to the Grindr profile nets him William, an early-stage F-to-M trans university student, and they actually make it a relationship. However, Johan is prone to impulsive acts, which lands him into trouble. Johan may also have trouble fitting into the trans community, and misses being penetrated by actual men. William, meanwhile, has trouble convincing the Gender Identity Clinic that he wants to transition from a straight woman to a gay man.

I saw this at the Inside Out film festival, and it was useful to discuss it afterwards. We settled on the "T" party being "trans", whereas for a different movie it could have been "testosterone".