Welcome back to another installment of Review Stew! For this week, we channel our inner Arthur and find out that having fun isn’t hard, when you’ve got a library card. That’s right, we’re heading over to Kanopy to take a look at an Oscar Nominated short film with…Night Ride (2020).
Title: Night Ride
Director: Eirik Tveiten
Released: June 10, 2020 (Norway)
Runtime: 16 minutes
Available to stream on: Kanopy
One cold winter night, Ebba (Sigrid Kandal Husjord) is waiting out in the snow for the tram to take her home. As the tram pulls up, the conductor steps off to go to the bathroom. Ebba asks if she can wait on the tram but the conductor informs her that the tram is scheduled to depart in 30 minutes. But the real kicker is that she isn’t allowed on the tram while the conductor isn’t onboard as well.
Well, Ebba isn’t about to sit out in the cold and continue to just wait. So when the conductor steps inside the bathroom, Ebba pries open the doors and gets on the tram. Once she’s onboard, her curiosity gets the best of her and she starts pressing buttons on the control panel. After some trial and error, Ebba gets the tram in motion and off she goes.
Never in her wildest dreams could Ebba have predicted where the night ride would take her.
Well, if nothing else, I can honestly say that Night Ride (2020) caught me by surprise. It goes in a direction that I did not see coming.
However, it never really cashes in on that surprise twist as everything remained rather surface level. This just makes it even more interesting that it was nominated for Best Live Action Short Film.
One thing that bothered me is Ebba not knowing what the controls in the tram did. We saw her communicate with the conductor, so we know she knows the language. Yet when Ebba is at the controls, which are clearly labeled, she freezes up and doesn’t know what button does what.
My gripes aside, there are worse ways you could spend 16 minutes of your day. Night Ride (2020) is entertaining enough to keep you engaged and definitely worthy of at least one viewing.
Well, now it’s your turn.
Have you seen Night Ride (2020)?
If so, leave a comment below or reach out to me on Bluesky and let me know your thoughts!
As always, you can follow me over on Letterboxd to keep up with everything else that I’ve been watching lately.