Floria is a nurse at a hospital. She arrives via a bus to a late night shift and is exhausted by having so many patients: Mr. Lau is waiting for the results of his scan, but the doctor leaves without telling him, so Floria begs him to wait until tomorrow; her assistant, Amelie, is too slow; a rich man has pancreatic cancer and paid for a priviliged treatment, but is angry that he did not get his tea on time, so Floria throws his watch out the window in anger; a woman goes out of her room with an oxygen tank to smoke, which distracts Floria, who thus accidentally gives Mr. Wong the wrong medicine, causing him an allergy; an old woman, for whom Floria didn't have time to take care of until the end, dies on her bed... Exhausted, Floria ends her shift, goes into the bus and heads back home.
A grim and realistic insight into the understaffed and overworked lives of nurses at a hospital, "Late Shift" plays out like a feature length episode from the TV series "ER", showing a day in life of the main heroine Floria, played very well by Leonie Benesch. The director and screenwriter Petra Volpe builds the story on raw, naturalistic images, and with a furious pacing that is congruent with the task of Floria who has to rush from patient to patient to get everything done, but does so with measure, refusing to go overboard or exaggerate things to seize attention of the viewers. Everything is built on small, unassuming details, but it does feel a bit bland and schematic in the end, almost like a collection of random episodes which do not lead to a particular point in the end. Despite this incomplete and disconnected approach, the film works, and it is interesting to watch Floria taking care of so many patients. The opening is already indicative, as a male nurse holds an old woman uptight, on her feet, as Floria takes the woman's dirty underwear down, and then throws it into trash. For them, there is no time or room for feeling disgust, everything is formal, cold and mechanical, to get the patient ready on their bed and perform a surgery or just a screening. Volpe creates a realistic film with restrained style, and hints at general problem of underfunding and underappreciation of the health system.
Grade:++
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