The night shift of a nurse and the multiplicity of her duties that bring her to the edge.
Puts your job and life into perspective. I’m not sure if IMDb got it wrong or deliberately misrepresented the information, but the logline and two out of three genres are misleading. It’s neither a crime nor a thriller – just a high-tension, realistic drama. In a nutshell, what you get is protracted shots that show nonstop the reality the nurses face daily. Late Shift is an hour and a half buildup, introducing everyone but mostly emphasising the stress the nurses go through. What’s the climax, you ask? Floria, the primary nurse, surviving the physical and mental collapse.
Leonie Benesch’s (Floria) performance is as realistic as it gets, and writer/director Petra Biondina Volpe is the one who provides all the material for her to shine. Volpe’s script, but also her pace and rhythm on screen, will make you mentally tired just by watching it. This is not easy to achieve. From beginning to end, the cuts become invisible and the story constantly flows, making it look like a never-ending shift in an endless night.
There are some interesting and alarming stats at the end that we should not overlook. They are actually terrifying. Film has the power to raise that awareness by presenting a world within ours. At least, Late Shift takes place in a country (Switzerland) where the hospitals are like 5-star hotels. There are countries where those hospitals seem straight from hell. No one would want to be either a patient or a nurse there.
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Solidarity for all the innocent lives that suffer the atrocities of war!
Stay safe!
