Franeck

The Night Stage was selected for the closing gala of the 2025bFlare festival in London. Understandably so, as it's quite a production, gets your attention from the very first scene and keeps you engaged with a complex plot, great camera work and suggestive sound.

However, the main plot - fetish discovered by 2 "random" lovers, unfortunately did not convince me. Interestingly, from the storytelling perspective I think that the screenplay had it all - we see how 2 lovers discover thrills of the risky encounters, we see how it grows in stages to the very extreme. However, instead of following the characters in their journey it is harder to believe them every time they meet again, to the point of the last scene which becomes a grotesque.

Thinking of similar movies it's hard for me not to compare it to the Babygirl which explored similar ideas and in my opinion did it right: we could see how gradually temptation wins over scruples as well as common sense. Night Stage on the other hand crosses subsequent boundaries with no scruples nor any reflection. Apart from the very first one, sex scenes happen out of the blue and the lovers engage in pushing the limits for no visible reason - which leaves us struggling to believe why they are willing to 'risk it all' just to have another quickie.

Overall, if you're after some action but you don't necessarily care about any deeper meaning - this could be a good watch. If you are willing to graciously turn a blind eye on the shortcomings so that you could see a bold attempt to explore a very interesting fetish phenomenon - you could give it a try too. However, if you want to appreciate something both deep and convincing, it will just irritate you with the amount of wasted potential.

I'm writing this review just after watching the movie. I chose this one from many others on the festival because of positive rating and reviews here on IMDB. I can agree that the movie is nicely made when it comes to camera work and visual aspects. We have retro scenery and quite realistic play. However, I just couldn't get any sense and almost any humour from it. A few moments that put a smile on my face were just nothing special and the last scene as per my taste - was just stupid in a non-funny way. Some people laughed, some other like me were wondering why others are laughing - so I think that was just about a cultural difference. There might be some cultural connotations I'm not aware of, so I just don't get what's funny. (normally in in one or two scenes... but in a whole movie?) I like comedies and I've watched many different, that one just didn't speak to me at all. I'm a big fan of cinema too and I watched hundreds of movies from many countries. For me that screenplay was absolutely nothing interesting - just like the screenplay that main character was trying to "sell". I should admit here that I watched the movie with English subtitles so there might have been a bad translation, but even then - a plot was just nothing exciting: two frustrated losers trying to do stupid things with no success in a crime excellencing nor making me laugh - that's how I would describe it. There were many such criminal comedies, mostly easy to whatch, stupid and funny - hence entertaining. As for me this one would almost fall into such category, but unfortunately it wasn't easy to whatch nor funny...