As far as our Editor is concerned every shift is a late shift but that’s because he’s never in on time. Throw in an extended lunch break and an early finish it’s a wonder that he gets any work done at all until we realize that of course he doesn’t. Quite why he hasn’t become a politician is anyone’s guess. (‘You’re fired!’ – Ed). But it’s very much different for nurse Floria (Leonie Benesch) who hits the ground running in the brand new training shoes she’d bought for work in the Swiss hospital where she is based. After a swift handover she soon finds that her ward is understaffed with only herself a colleague and an error prone student nurse to cover the late shift.
And there’s little let up as the film follows her right from the start with a ward full of patients that includes one still awaiting a cancer diagnosis from a lazy arse doctor too keen to get home, another cancer patient in two minds as to whether to continue her treatment, the three sons of a patient making unnecessary demands on her already packed shift that’s exasperated further by the frequent demands of a private patient regarding her as much as room service as a nurse. It’s the brilliance of the pacing and editing that balances the individual stories and sees this all gather momentum as Floria gets busier and busier and it’s a certainty that somethings got to give.
Running at a brief 90 minutes it can possibly be seen as an extended episode of Casualty as we are taken headlong into the unrelenting work Floria faces as she makes her rounds and its the sort of film that lends itself to the one shot that was used to film ‘Boiling Pointi in one take. Late Shift’s frenzied pace makes this far from being a recruitment campaign but instead an end caption is a grim reminder how woefully understaffed the world’s hospitals are when it comes to nurses whose label as ‘angels’ is richly deserved.
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Here’s the Late Shift trailer…….
