Director: Finn Taylor
Writer: Finn Taylor
Stars: Stephen Lang, Elsie Fisher, Luke David Blumm
Synopsis: A Holocaust survivor harboring a 60-year secret forms a transformative friendship with a troubled teen. Their connection helps both find healing as Herbert finally shares his past with Abby.
Did you watch Marty Supreme or If I Had Legs I’d Kick You but you wanted an infusion of plot mechanisms from The Pitt? Well, you’re in luck with Petra Volpe’s Late Shift. Featuring nerve-wracking energy and a dynamite lead performance from Leonie Benesch, this film is the latest in the long history of uncomfortable film watches.
There is something to be said for that buzz of energy from anxious film watches. You never feel comfortable, too much is happening at once, and you just know things aren’t going to work out in the end. It’s like watching a motorcycle do dangerous tricks on the highway. You want to see the tricks, but you also don’t want to see the crash. And after the inevitable crash, you can’t imagine what the consequences will be. It’s a very effective direction for film.
Plot-wise, it’s exactly what it looks like. A dedicated nurse, Floria (Benesch), arrives for her late shift at a Swiss hospital. The floor is understaffed and overstuffed. Doctors are too busy to talk with patients, and nurses are too busy to properly spend the amount of time necessary to do their work. Floria must deal with the hectic pace, an elderly man awaiting test results, patients and families facing sobering realities, and a private insurance patient who wants to take up too much time and resources.
Volpe employs this really cool trick where the audience is specifically on the lookout for mistakes. Floria is obviously competent and experienced, but there is also zero chance she can get through this shift scot-free. Each time she goes to a medicine lockup, mixes a syringe, or performs the duties she has performed dozens of times, you are on the edge of your seat just waiting for the screw-up. What are the consequences? How will she get out of it? This is all going through your head before things go wrong. There’s a masterful unspoken tension just from the pace and the relentlessness of the night.
It helps that the filmmakers don’t try to overdo things. The pressures put in Floria’s way are the expected, normal pressures of working in an understaffed medical field. She is not dealing with some crazy medical outbreak or unexpected emergency. She has to feed a dementia patient, administer pain meds, track down a surgeon, appease worried family members, and find time to make a peppermint tea. This has nothing to do with herself. As much as the film goes to great lengths to show Floria’s activities, the stress that puts on her is deeply felt, though she never lets it show too much.
Benesch manages to combine her characterization into moments of monumental competence, and a breath short of complete and utter breakdown. That manifests itself into exasperation and sorrow, but never surrender. Even in a moment of impulse, she nearly immediately snaps back to reality and attempts to fix her lapse. You are begging Floria to physically assault some of the people she deals with, but she also recognizes this is just one day of many. Benesch wears the experience, competence, and resolve like a perfect set of scrubs. It’s a towering performance without much flash.
Volpe includes a few touches of magical realism, but it can be explained away as exhaustion or imagination. You could point to some convenient plot resolutions, but sometimes a crazy situation can be tidied up that quickly. The film does have an overarching message: nurses are overworked. And this is not just an American problem, as this is obviously a film made outside of the States. The end credits feature some sobering statistics about nursing shortage and burnout rates. It might be a bit on the nose, but it doesn’t make it any less potent.
Late Shift may be an uncomfortable watch, but Leonie Benesch’s immense performance is worth the experience. Sit back, take in the scenery, and thank God you aren’t a nurse. If you are a nurse, may God bless you.
