Leonie Benesch, so compelling in ‘The Teachers’ Lounge’, delivers another powerful performance in ‘Late Shift’ as Flora, a night-shift nurse pushed to the brink. Set almost entirely over the course of a single night in a hospital, the film immerses us in the grinding, relentless chaos of her world – where life-and-death decisions collide with petty demands, underfunding, and emotional exhaustion.

Flora is doing the impossible: caring for critically ill patients while also fielding trivial requests – like peppermint tea – from those who treat her with casual entitlement. Some patients are kind and grateful, but many are impatient, dismissive, or even hostile, seemingly blaming her for the hospital’s failings. The result is a portrait of a woman constantly chasing her own tail, stretched so thin she becomes almost spectral – present everywhere, yet seen nowhere.

The film plays with a real-time aesthetic, heightening the sense of urgency and claustrophobia. Like a Robert Altman film, it weaves together multiple storylines in overlapping dialogue and fragmented scenes, creating a tapestry of human need, pain, and quiet perseverance. There’s no flashy drama here, just the brutal, everyday heroism of someone trying to hold a broken system together with sheer willpower.

What ‘Late Shift’ does so effectively is remind us just how invisible frontline workers like nurses often are. Flora is expected to be endlessly competent, endlessly compassionate, and endlessly available – but she’s also alone, unsupported, and nearing collapse. She’s giving everything she has to strangers, and yet the system gives little back in return.

The film is mythological in its own way – not in terms of fantasy, but in the way it elevates Flora’s struggle into something emblematic. She becomes a symbol of the countless healthcare workers who go unnoticed, undervalued, and overworked. And if that message isn’t clear enough, the end credits drive it home explicitly.

‘Late Shift’ is a tribute – not just to nurses, but to the quiet resilience required to keep entire systems afloat while receiving neither thanks nor relief. It’s a sobering, beautifully acted film that lingers well beyond its closing moments.