A completely occupied surgical ward staffed solely by two nurses and a reluctant apprentice appears like a recipe for catastrophe. “Late Shift”, a slight and easy drama about one nurse’s torrid evening on the hospital, makes that clear, if it wasn’t apparent sufficient already. A reasonably clear try to point out how powerful life is for nurses even in clear, well-kept, extremely superior amenities, “Late Shift” even ends with playing cards of details about the scarcity of nurses afflicting all 4 corners of the globe, and the way it’s getting worse. However noble intentions apart, writer-director Petra Volpe’s movie is in the end an excessive amount of assume, not sufficient really feel.
Leonie Benesch performs Floria, a worn out public servant (emphasis on servant) making an attempt to coexist with chaos and discovering these round her wanting. That a lot is just like her breakout function in “The Lecturers’ Lounge”, 2023’s Turkish-German classroom drama a couple of instructor tasked with investigating a pupil’s theft. However in contrast to that provocative social drama, “Late Shift” is missing in any severe ethical or allegorical exploration. Its conceit is simple, even frustratingly so. It’s as follows: nursing could be very troublesome, significantly whenever you’ve bought nobody to assist and the sufferers are a nightmare. A colleague is off sick, exacerbating Floria’s pile of, sure, life-and-death work. The roar of ambulances reaching the hospital is a stark reminder that Floria’s workload will solely get greater. And nobody is coming to assist.
The closest we get to a plot is in Floria’s clashes along with her most taxing affected person of all, Mr Severin (Jürg Plüss), the ward’s solely personal affected person. Switzerland presents a two-tier healthcare system wherein the rich pays for higher care and larger rooms inside hospitals the place the poorer share. Mr Severin’s expectations, entitlement and outright rudeness stretch Floria to her very limits. If that doesn’t sound like a nuanced portrait of sophistication and gender, that’s as a result of it isn’t. However when Floria suffers one other disappointment and snaps at Mr Severin, he exploits her misstep and we’re arrange for a tense (or not less than tenser) climax.
In lower than 90 minutes, nonetheless, it’s laborious to say a lot. The largest crime of “Late Shift”, nonetheless, is that it barely tries. Happy simply to be a slice of life cleaning soap opera, “Late Shift” by design stays on the floor in its relationships with Floria’s seemingly one sane colleague Bea (Sonja Riesen). The intern Amelie (Selma) seems and disappears. And even Floria’s strenuous relationship along with her kids is barely an afterthought, with one scene that would conceivably function a strain level providing little greater than half-baked exposition. There isn’t sufficient to be taught something. If Steven Knight’s car-bound one-man present film “Locke” taught us that much less may be extra, “Late Shift” is a cautionary story in spreading an ensemble with solely half a significant scene every throughout a 90-minute film.
In its nation of manufacturing, “Late Shift” might shine a light-weight on substandard care at Switzerland’s hospitals, with an getting older inhabitants needing extra care than ever and each nation dealing with the inevitable demographic challenges of a lot of older folks, fewer younger. Audiences in international locations the place such subjects are apparent and much-discussed might be much less properly served. Writing from Britain, which has the developed world’s most equitable however perennially under-resourced healthcare system, the themes of “Late Shift” quantity to one thing like: water is moist. However Volpe is speaking to a local viewers and seems to prioritise persuasion over significantly sturdy feeling.
That looks like an much more egregious mistake when Benesch’s efficiency is that this good. Floria is a portrait of unflappable repression, the kind of stage of stress that numbs the muscular tissues within the face to be nothing aside from clean. By no means thoughts pale. She pulls this off brilliantly — and in appearing as a nurse for 90 minutes, places in an unavoidable bodily shift for her efforts. Excessive-adrenaline environments appear to be the place she is most comfy, not less than as an actress, having additionally impressed in “September 5” as a tv translator working all through the Munich bloodbath of Israeli athletes. “Late Shift” is carried on Benesch’s shoulders, and he or she impresses. It’s only a disgrace she isn’t given extra of a film to behave in.
If solely “Late Shift” had extra of a narrative and was desperate to spend longer with its characters, it’d make use of its stable lead efficiency and claustrophobic setting. However its try to evangelise runs chilly and solely shines a light-weight on what would possibly’ve been. Some issues — on this case, a heroic nurse managing to be as emotionally clever as she is professionally superhuman — are easy sufficient to know (by no means thoughts commonplace) as to not want the film therapy. Or not less than for extra to be given to it.
Grade: C+
“Late Shift” premiered on the 2025 Berlin Worldwide Movie Competition. It’s presently searching for U.S. distribution.
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