Late Shift

The movie shows the daily routine of a nurse in a Swiss hospital when there are not enough nurses. This is already and will become a huge problem in the future due to the increasing age of the population and the decreasing number of skilled workers such as nurses.

Leonie Benesch is great once again, just like in "Teachers' Lounge" and "September 5".

The movie shows a realistic scenario in a full hospital and is barely stereotypical especially compared to other hospitals movies.

The camera work of Judith Kaufmann is fantastic and displays the physical pressure excellent. It feels like we are walking with Floria through the hospital and observe her like in a documentary.

Empathy! This nurse's empathy really stood out, even in the most chaotic moments. Yes, there's a huge workload and not enough staff or enough minutes, but she still manages to offer precious seconds to make her patients feel seen and heard.

She stays calm, while everything is coming at her nonstop and, at same time, she manages to remain human, to be as kind as possible in those moments.. You can definitely see that even if when she's overwhelmed, she still remains a decent human being.

I felt like I was there with her the whole time, never bored.. if anything, I could feel the urgency and the stress and I was rooting for her to pull everything off.

It also made me a bit sad because in my country hospital stays are nothing like this. Hospitals don't have as many features and useful tech I saw here and most of the medical staff have lost their empathy over time, probably because it's tough to survive in this environment without shutting off emotionally. Not to mention that in reality the procedures aren't always followed as carefully as this nurse tried to do in the movie.

In the end I just want to say I admire everyone who chooses this career path, stays compassionate and does their best despite all the challenges.

This film hit me deeply - not just as a viewer, but as someone who has seen parts of this world up close, though never from the inside. It's a quietly devastating portrait of a healthcare system where staff are constantly overwhelmed, and patients often reduced to numbers. The film is restrained in its tone but unflinching in its realism.

For medical professionals, especially those who have worked in underfunded hospitals, this might feel less like cinema and more like déjà vu. A person close to me worked in multiple hospitals over the years and immediately recognized the emotional detachment that can become necessary when death is a regular occurrence - not because you stop caring, but because the system gives you no room to act otherwise. For them, the film was not emotional but eerily accurate - a reflection of shifts they'd rather forget.

But for viewers like me - those who've only seen the burnout and emotional toll secondhand - the film was powerful, even overwhelming at times. I found myself on the verge of tears multiple times, not only out of empathy for the patients but also out of frustration and deep respect for the caregivers who navigate this impossible environment.

The acting is superbly naturalistic, with a rawness that serves the film's themes perfectly. The sound design and score are minimal but poignant, never pushing emotion but allowing it to surface organically. This is not a feel-good film - far from it - but it's an essential one. It asks not only how we treat the sick and dying, but how we treat those who care for them.

If you're looking for comfort, look elsewhere. But if you're ready to see what "broken system" truly means, this film will stay with you.

A very realistic depiction of the everyday professional life of a nurse. The atmosphere in the film is excellent, so much anxiety, stress and lack of time, that it often causes a raw mixture of emotions in the viewer. From anger, tension, to sympathy with the main character and hope for people. An excellent choice of characters, where each, in their own way, shows a certain type of human character and each, in their own way, affects the main protagonist. The camera is exceptional and through the entire film fantastically portrays the events almost exclusively following the main character. Dialogues are short, very realistic and meaningful. Leonie Benesh, in the role of the nurse who carries the plot of the film, is fascinating. And the rest of the actors, in the roles of patients, are up to the task. Although, in several moments, I had to collect my thoughts, due to too many memories that certain scenes evoked, the film is really excellent. Perhaps it is not for those who carry too much trauma from the hospital, because there is too little fiction and too much reality.

"Late Shift" delivers a gripping and heartfelt portrayal of the exhausting reality faced by hospital staff, carried brilliantly by Leonie Benesch's very strong performance. While marketed as crime/thriller, the film is firmly a drama - there's no real mystery or crime, just raw, authentic human struggle.