FILM OF THE WEEK: Late Shift - Reviewed by Roe McDermott

Petra Volpe’s Late Shift is a taut, clear-eyed immersion into the overburdened world of a hospital’s night-time operations, propelled by the udnerstated brilliance of Leonie Benesch, who delivers another performance of remarkable clarity and control. As Floria, a nurse already fatigued before her twelve-hour shift even begins, Benesch moves through the film with a brisk, restless energy that conveys the professional discipline required to keep chaos at bay, even as her personal reserves begin to run dangerously low. A colleague is out sick, the on-call doctor is handline an emergency, new intern is guileless and Floria has to handle 26 patients with only one other nurse on duty.

From the first moments, there’s a sense that Volpe knows exactly what she’s doing. The opening shot glides through rows of hospital uniforms in an industrial laundry, setting the tone for a film that understands systems, structures but also can turn human beings into interchangeable parts. Floria dons one such uniform in a sterile locker room, lacing up her new, pristine white trainers before heading into the ward where, over the course of a long and relentlessly demanding shift, they will be scuffed, stained, and – like her - barely holding together.

The film’s title in German, Heldin, translates simply to “heroine,” and might seem sentimental. But Volpe’s gaze is not romantic in its portrayal of Floria’s labour, which starts with her cleaning up an elderly woman who has soiled herself. Floria is quick but unhurried, professional but also deeply kind – the type of person you would hope would be there for your parents in their old age, or yourself. That’s the first job of the day, and the jobs soon become relentless. The camera stays close, following Floria as she moves from room to room, from crisis to crisis, dealing with everything from medication mix-ups to grieving families to a passive-aggressive private patient who treats her like a failing waitress or personal assistant. She does what she can, when she can, and when she cannot, she apologises, though increasingly with less conviction, because there simply is not enough of her to go around.

Benesch plays this accumulation of pressure with quiet, exquisite precision. She has a way of listening that’s magnetic. Her large eyes are alert yet heavy, taking everything in, suppressing everything back. One moment, she's comforting an elderly man awaiting a delayed diagnosis; in another, she crouches beside a woman with dementia and sings a lullaby, her voice gentle and soothing. It’s a moment of beautiful tenderness – and we know, as well as Floria does, that this moment will cost her as it makes her even more behind schedule. A moment where a rude and obnoxious patient lashes out at her show Benesch talent for showing barely concealed emotional containment. Her face just holding back tears, shock and resignation, she fulfils her duties efficiently and leaves the room. In another film, it would be here where she collapses into tears, but not in Late Shift – there’s no time.

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch’s score pulses beneath the action, urgent with occasional notes of heart-pounding tension. Though the late-stage use of ANOHNI’s “Hope There’s Someone” veers the overly-lite as Floria juggles the unmanageable workload, there’s the ever-present sense that something will go wrong – and the stakes are life and death. We feel for Floria but also become so acutely aware of the dangers of such a dysfunctional system. No matter how professional Floria is, no-one wants their health in the hands of two overworked, sleep-deprived, stressed out and completely overwhelmed nurses who are constantly juggling the needs of over two dozen patients, let alone the extra demands on their time from family members and people ringing the hospital about the lost and found. Mistakes feel inevitable.

The film isn’t perfect – a subplot involving a smug businessman and an expensive watch feels schematic - but the film maintains a breathless, compelling rhythm throughout. It’s a portrait of a night but also of a system, one reliant on and unappreciative of the understaffed and under-supported nurses (mainly women) working countless shifts, just as manic and stressful as this one. In Benesch’s hands, Floria becomes a figure of both admirable competence and deeply human vulnerability, not a saint, not a martyr, but a woman just trying to do her job within a desperately broken system.

And she’s one of the nurses sticking it out – for now. Before the credits, some alarming statistics flash up on the screen: by the year 2030, Switzerland will be short of 30,000 nursing professionals. 36% of trained nurses quit within just four years. The World Health Organisation estimates a shortage of 13 million nurses by the year 2030.

There’s a rot at the heart of healthcare. Late Shift shines a light on it with beautiful humanity and technical efficiency. Let’s just hope it leads to changes in hearts and policies.

Written and directed by Petra Volpe. Cinematography by Judith Kaufmann.
Starring Leonie Benesch, Sonja Riesen, Alireza Bayram, Selma Aldin. 91 mins
In cinemas August 1.