Untamed review — Eric Bana delivers shocks and originality
The first three minutes of Netflix's new thriller, set in Yosemite National Park and starring Eric Bana, Sam Neill and Lily Santiago, is one of the most visually dramatic openings to a drama that I've seen in some time. Two climbers are attempting, perilously, to scale the side of El Capitan, a 3000ft high granite monolith in Yosemite Valley, in scenes that will be challenging for those of you with vertigo. They slip, stumble and dangle but that's nothing compared to what comes next. Suddenly from the summit falls a young woman, crashing violently against the jagged stone face, until she stops, tangled in their safety ropes, and hangs there, swinging grotesquely and dead.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
31 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The shocking hit film about overworked nurses that's causing alarm across Europe
The world could face a shortage of 13 million nurses by the end of this decade. For her new film, Swiss director Petra Volpe imagined the consequences of just one missed shift on a busy night at a hospital, and found herself making a disaster movie. With Late Shift, Volpe aimed to shine a light on the frontlines of the looming healthcare catastrophe through the eyes of the dedicated, exhausted Floria. Played by German actor Leonie Benesch, the young nurse shows an initially acrobatic grace in her workday, whose first half resembles a particularly hectic episode of the restaurant kitchen series The Bear, but with life-and-death stakes. Arriving for her shift cheery and energetic and taking the time to ask about her colleague's recent holiday, Floria soon hears that another nurse has called in sick. The looming workload suddenly grows exponentially, compounding the stress and driving up the likelihood she will make a fateful mistake. The Swiss-born Volpe said she had chosen the film's German title Heldin (Heroine) because it took a mythic term often reserved for warriors and applied it to the bravery and self-sacrifice of care work. 'This work, which is extremely complex and emotionally charged, is completely devalued in our societies,' Volpe says. 'I find it very symptomatic because it's women's work – 80% of the people [in many countries] who do this work are female.' Volpe was inspired by a longtime roommate who worked as a nurse, and by the autobiographical novel Our Profession Is Not the Problem – It's the Circumstances by German former care worker Madeline Calvelage, who advised her on the script. 'My heart was pounding from the first chapter and I thought to myself – this reads like a thriller,' Volpe says. 'But within that stress you find the most tender, human moments.' The film revolves around the escalating and competing needs of patients on a hospital ward, with a different set of medical and emotional demands lurking behind each door, signalled to the staff by a shrieking call bell. Benesch's turbo-driven career has already included roles on The Crown and Babylon Berlin as well as film parts in Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon, Munich Olympics attacks drama September 5 and German Oscar nominee The Teachers' Lounge. She says a common thread in her most recent characters was 'people who burn for what they do'. But she notes it was rare in TV medical dramas to see nurses and their everyday feats front and centre. 'You're used to getting the physicians as the heroes and then in the backdrop a nurse might hang an infusion bag or drink a coffee or have an affair with the senior doctor,' Benesch says. 'Before this it wasn't clear to me how much of the actual medical responsibility rests on nurses' shoulders.' Benesch, who trained at London's Guildhall School of Music & Drama, said she spent several shifts trailing real nurses at a Swiss hospital to learn the 'choreography' of interactions between staff and patients, and the manual skills of prepping a syringe or taking blood pressure. 'I wanted real nurses not to be able to tell the difference between me and a professional,' she says. 'I just hope people aren't scared off by a film with subtitles because the story is absolutely universal.' Late Shift has stoked heated policy reform debates and proved a critical and box office success in German-speaking Europe, even besting the latest Bridget Jones movie in Swiss cinemas. At the world premiere at the Berlin film festival in February, several nurses were invited to appear in their uniforms on the red carpet and take the stage after the screening for a round of applause. Days before Germany's general election, some held #wirsindfloria (We Are Floria) signs. One of those guests was Ingo Böing, 47, who worked in hospitals for a quarter century and is now on staff at the German Association of Nursing Professionals, which lobbies for better conditions for care workers. 'It was incredibly moving,' he says of the film gala. 'Watching several of the scenes I thought 'Wow, that's really how it is.'' Böing says Late Shift did a convincing job depicting the 'vicious circle' of nursing, in which people working at the absolute limits of their strength call in sick at short notice, leaving those who show up for duty with an even more daunting task. 'It's that feeling of trying to meet so many needs at once and not managing,' he adds. He says waiting lists like those used by the NHS in Britain, although frustrating for patients, would help hospitals in Germany better prioritise while keeping medical staff from getting overstretched. Franziska Aurich, 28, who works on a cancer ward at Berlin's Charité hospital, also found the film 'very close to reality'. Asked what she'd advise Floria, Aurich says: 'I would say go back to work tomorrow because like her I can't imagine doing anything else with my life. But join a union, so you don't have as many shifts like this one.' Volpe, who divides her time between Berlin and New York, says she was gratified to see nurses going in groups to see the film, and hoped it would make the rest of the audience into better patients. 'Nurses should be at the very top of our social hierarchy but we live in a world where it's just the opposite,' she says. 'This film is a love letter to the profession.' While the film is set in Europe's creaking but still intact social infrastructure, Volpe said she saw in the USnited States where Donald Trump's swingeing cuts to Medicaid, which mainly serves poor and disabled people, threatened to hurt the most vulnerable. 'You see a great cruelty in all these measures,' she says. 'Elon Musk said he saw empathy as the biggest problem of our time which is of course completely monstrous. The least an artist can do is to push back against that. Sooner or later we're all going to be dependent on that person standing by the bed.' Late Shift will be released in the UK and Ireland on 1 August
Rhyl Journal
3 hours ago
- Rhyl Journal
Trump opens his new Scottish golf course before return to US to ‘put out fires'
The US president teed off at The New Course in Menie in front of a crowd including golfers, the Scottish First Minister and the Scottish Labour leader. Mr Trump also made reference to late James Bond actor Sir Sean Connery's reported support for his golf resort – even attempting to recreate the actor's voice. Just before hitting the first ball at the New Course, the US president told those gathered on a grandstand: 'We started with a beautiful piece of land, but we made it much more beautiful. 'The area has really welcomed us. If you remember at the beginning there wasn't quite a welcome, but it wasn't bad. 'But with time they liked us more and more, now they love us and we love them.' Mr Trump added: 'I look forward to playing it today. 'We'll play it very quickly and then I go back to DC and we put out fires all over the world. 'We did one yesterday – you know we stopped the war. We've stopped about five wars. 'That's much more important than playing golf. As much as I like it, it's much more important.' At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the president thanked his son Eric for his role in creating the new 18-hole course, adding: 'This has been an unbelievable development. 'The land, they said it couldn't get zoned, it was an impossibility. 'And Sean Connery said 'let the bloody bloke build his golf course'. 'Once he said that everything came into line. John (Swinney) and I were talking about that last night.' The president met First Minister Mr Swinney on Monday evening at a private dinner, and the two had a more formal meeting on Tuesday ahead of the course opening. This meeting is understood to have focused on Scotch whisky tariffs and the situation in Gaza. Mr Trump will head back to the US later on Tuesday on Air Force One, as his Scottish visit comes to a close. Construction of the new course in Menie began in 2023, with Mr Trump and his son Eric breaking ground on the project. Trump International Scotland claims the two courses will be the 'greatest 36 holes in golf'. Critics say the Trump developments in Scotland have not delivered as many jobs as promised and work at the Menie site has caused environmental damage. Members of the media watched the opening ceremony from a grandstand, with music played beforehand including Roxanne, Thriller, and Surfin' USA, plus music by the Script and Elvis. The president has already played several rounds of golf during his Scottish trip, teeing off at his other resort in Turnberry, South Ayrshire, on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Trump hit out at the UK's taxes on North Sea oil, saying the natural resource is a 'treasure chest' for the country. He wrote on Truth Social: 'They have essentially told drillers and oil companies that, 'we don't want you'. 'Incentivize the drillers, fast. 'A vast fortune to be made for the UK, and far lower energy costs for the people!' The US president's fifth and final day in Scotland on Tuesday follows a meeting and press conference with Sir Keir Starmer on Monday. As they met at Turnberry for bilateral talks on trade and the situation in Gaza, Mr Trump and Sir Keir took part in what proved to be a lengthy media event, with the president discussing a number of topics. The Republican Party leader spoke of his 'great love' for Scotland and said he wanted to see the nation 'thrive'. The president also hosted a dinner at Menie with members of his family and guests including the Prime Minister. A demonstration took place in Balmedie, near the resort, on Monday. A small number of protesters sat at the roadside in the centre of the village, surrounded by cardboard signs bearing anti-Trump slogans.
North Wales Chronicle
3 hours ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Trump opens his new Scottish golf course before return to US to ‘put out fires'
The US president teed off at The New Course in Menie in front of a crowd including golfers, the Scottish First Minister and the Scottish Labour leader. Mr Trump also made reference to late James Bond actor Sir Sean Connery's reported support for his golf resort – even attempting to recreate the actor's voice. Just before hitting the first ball at the New Course, the US president told those gathered on a grandstand: 'We started with a beautiful piece of land, but we made it much more beautiful. 'The area has really welcomed us. If you remember at the beginning there wasn't quite a welcome, but it wasn't bad. 'But with time they liked us more and more, now they love us and we love them.' Mr Trump added: 'I look forward to playing it today. 'We'll play it very quickly and then I go back to DC and we put out fires all over the world. 'We did one yesterday – you know we stopped the war. We've stopped about five wars. 'That's much more important than playing golf. As much as I like it, it's much more important.' At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the president thanked his son Eric for his role in creating the new 18-hole course, adding: 'This has been an unbelievable development. 'The land, they said it couldn't get zoned, it was an impossibility. 'And Sean Connery said 'let the bloody bloke build his golf course'. 'Once he said that everything came into line. John (Swinney) and I were talking about that last night.' The president met First Minister Mr Swinney on Monday evening at a private dinner, and the two had a more formal meeting on Tuesday ahead of the course opening. This meeting is understood to have focused on Scotch whisky tariffs and the situation in Gaza. Mr Trump will head back to the US later on Tuesday on Air Force One, as his Scottish visit comes to a close. Construction of the new course in Menie began in 2023, with Mr Trump and his son Eric breaking ground on the project. Trump International Scotland claims the two courses will be the 'greatest 36 holes in golf'. Critics say the Trump developments in Scotland have not delivered as many jobs as promised and work at the Menie site has caused environmental damage. Members of the media watched the opening ceremony from a grandstand, with music played beforehand including Roxanne, Thriller, and Surfin' USA, plus music by the Script and Elvis. The president has already played several rounds of golf during his Scottish trip, teeing off at his other resort in Turnberry, South Ayrshire, on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Trump hit out at the UK's taxes on North Sea oil, saying the natural resource is a 'treasure chest' for the country. He wrote on Truth Social: 'They have essentially told drillers and oil companies that, 'we don't want you'. 'Incentivize the drillers, fast. 'A vast fortune to be made for the UK, and far lower energy costs for the people!' The US president's fifth and final day in Scotland on Tuesday follows a meeting and press conference with Sir Keir Starmer on Monday. As they met at Turnberry for bilateral talks on trade and the situation in Gaza, Mr Trump and Sir Keir took part in what proved to be a lengthy media event, with the president discussing a number of topics. The Republican Party leader spoke of his 'great love' for Scotland and said he wanted to see the nation 'thrive'. The president also hosted a dinner at Menie with members of his family and guests including the Prime Minister. A demonstration took place in Balmedie, near the resort, on Monday. A small number of protesters sat at the roadside in the centre of the village, surrounded by cardboard signs bearing anti-Trump slogans.
