Keswick Film Club - Reviews - Late Shift

This film followed a nurse on her shift, understaffed with only two nurses and some students covering a shift at a Swiss hospital. Petra Volpe, the Swiss/Italian writer/director is interested in social issues and at times this almost feels like a documentary on nurse shortages – indeed the film finishes with statistics about numbers of nurses lacking in Europe and globally.

However, this doesn't detract from the drama of the film, the cinematography where the camera follows Floria, the nurse played by Leonie Benesch; the acting as she tries to do the impossible of keeping everyone well and safe; and the interaction with the patients. We see her unable to spend the time she wants to with the elderly woman with dementia, the families who need to know what's happening, and the man who has been promised a visit from the doctor to tell him his results which never happens. Under pressure she makes a mistake with a patient's drugs. Finally she loses her temper with a private patient who is complaining when she fails to bring him tea quickly whilst she is dealing with the death of another patient. Unfortunately the final scenes lack some of the credibility of the film.

It's a great performance by Benesch and is being put forward for the Swiss Oscars. Volpe says "sooner or later we're all going to be dependent on that person standing by the bed".