Night Nurse

Night Nurse is the rare film that features exactly zero characters. Oh, there are plenty of people, to be sure. Most of them even have names! But that's approximately where their definition stops. Each is a nurse at the same assisted living facility, the kind where the patients have complete freedom to roam and drive and use the phone, all with minimal supervision. The type of facility that is definitely a real thing. Whether the women ever leave the grounds is uncertain. It doesn't seem so, as they hang around long past the end of their shift, and we're focused on the newest member of the staff, Eleni (Cemre Paksoy), who lives on site. Georgia Bernstein's screenplay highlights their emptiness, as multiple nurses are asked multiple times "What do you do for fun?", and every single time, the response is a bashful "I don't know."

Their immediate interests are clearer, although still murky. All have fallen under the spell of "dementia patient" Douglas (Bruce McKenzie), though none quite as intensely as Eleni. Douglas landed here after hitting on the housekeeper, whom he supposedly thought was his late wife. Meanwhile, a series of shots of his ever-searching eyes beg to differ, their eager light and the slight curl at the edge of his lips indicating the fun he's having messing with the new nurse by deliberately failing a mental acuity test. No, he's as lively as they come, despite being in his sixties or seventies. Even such, what could he possibly have that they want?

Read my full review on Pop Culture Maniacs.