Christoph Hochhäusler’s slow-burn urban noir Till the End of the Night starts with time-lapse footage of the film’s first set, a well-to-do and apparently lived-in apartment flat, being built from scratch out of an empty room.
Sadly, what looks to be challenging piece of Brechtian deconstruction is literally a plot point, as well as a not-so-subtle metaphor for the layers of deceit in the story that follows.
Perhaps because it was elevated to the Berlinale competition, where it won one of the festival’s gender-neutral supporting actor prizes for Thea Ehre, or perhaps because it seems like it’s going to break new ground in the genre with the central pairing of a gay male cop and a trans female convict.
But whatever it is that might bring undue scrutiny to a serviceable piece of pulp entertainment, Till the End of the Night disappoints not because of what it is but because of what it might have been.
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