Night Ride (Nattrikken) (2020)

Ebba, Sigrid Kandal Husjord (“Kaptajn Bimse”, “The Other World (TV)”), waits in the freezing, snowy weather for a tram. When it finally arrives, the driver gets off, shuts the doors and begins to walk away.

Ebba asks him to let her on, it’s freezing, but he says he can’t let her on when he’s not on the tram and he’s off for a comfort break, but the tram will move in half an hour.

Rather than waiting, Ebba hops on the tram herself, forcing the doors manually. But, in her attempts at closing the door via the controls, she winds up moving the tram instead. At first just a bit and then she manages to stop it.

When the driver hears the commotion he comes tearing out of the toilets and, in a panic, Ebba pushes the lever of the tram and high-tails it out of there, happily driving along in her tram, she even stops to pick up passengers at the next tram stop.

The passengers are some couples, a couple of loud mouth guys and a young woman, you can see where this is headed, or can you? One of the men invariably makes his way to the front to attempt to chat up the young woman and things begin well.

However, when our amateur driver is forced to slam on the tram breaks, or run a red light, everyone is thrown forward and the young woman loses her wig, revealing she to actually be a he.

The guy is angry now and he and his friend begin harassing the man, taking his wig and putting it on themselves. The driver attempts an intervention but it doesn’t last and she’s told to just drive.

Can she summon up the courage to intervene? Will any of the passengers do anything to help?

Written and directed by Eirik Tveiten (“Hassan (Short)”, “Voyeur (Short)”) Night Ride, or Nattrikken as it’s known in Norwegian, is a beautifully shot short movie which is also quite a statement on society. The lack of help for a fellow human is quite something to behold and something I’m sure we’ve all seen in one form or the other.

What is good though, is the ending. It’s a wickedly delicious twist from Tveiten that leaves you imagining the explanations that would have been stammered out!

Night Ride has qualified to be considered for the Oscars.