Thea Ehre is a force to be reckoned with. Having won the Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance at the 2023 Berlinale, it seems unanimously agreed upon that Till the End of the Night (Bis ans Ende der Nacht) has struck gold whenever Ehre is on screen. What material she has been given for the screen however is far less competent, a queer thriller that has barely a thrill in sight.
Robert Demant (Timocin Ziegler) is a greasy narcotics agent, working undercover in an effort to get close to drug kingpin Victor (Michael Sideris). In order to make the set up appear convincing, he is instructed to form a close romantic bond with Leni (Thea Ehre), an erratic yet driven trans woman who is out on parole and desperate to attain freedom. They both join a salsa dance class that Victor attends with his partner Nicole (Ioana Iacob), and from there a long and arduous chase begins. What makes things more complicated is that Robert and Leni already have been romantic with each other in the past, a past that Robert can’t get over. He constantly observes Leni as the ‘Lenard’ that he once knew and loved and cannot reconcile with the woman now standing in front of him – his transphobia runs deep. Once they begin this ruse of a faux relationship, various plot machinations unfurl that neither hold the momentum nor the interest of the viewer.
Whatever Ziegler is doing with his performance is a stark juxtaposition to Ehre. While she commands the screen with captivating vulnerability, Ziegler is just a dopey piglet that oinks his way through the padded two-hour runtime. His dirty demeanour does the character no favours, what is intended to be an anti-hero we follow to try and understand their motivations, Robert is merely a morose mouthpiece, one that spends the majority of the film berating and minimising Leni’s appearance – you can practically see grease melting off his leather jacket. They circle around the internal battle Robert deals with as a gay man trying to love a woman, but it is conveyed in what can almost be described as a form of repetitive trans torture – Leni is simply there to reflect Robert’s ignorance. Exploring these complex themes sounds enticing on paper, but director Christoph Hochhäusler seems to misunderstand how to create any allegory beyond queer angst and manipulation. Ziegler does not help in making these ideas bounce off the page, in fact he couldn’t be more inelastic.
If you look at the official definition of ‘Thriller’, you will find the word exciting in connotation with crime. Putting aside the questionable sexual politics, Till the End of the Night is neither exciting nor actually presenting much crime. It plods in such a way that it repeats certain narrative beats – Robert and Leni make a further connection with Victor in a very convenient way, but it causes upheaval in their relationship. They fight over it, go their separate ways, then reconcile and continue their undercover quest. It is tiresome at best, gruelling and nonsensical at worst. Once the twists start coming in the final act, they emerge too late and far too quickly as it scrambles to get to its final credits – employing little in the way of criminality. It does somewhat commit to its neo-noir routes, certain shots appointing occasional dutch angles that add a certain unease to the nocturnal happenings.
With this lack of chemistry between the two characters; if Robert were to shave or shower at least once, Leni would hopefully find it more plausible to pretend to be in a relationship with him, poor narrative focal points when it comes to convenience and espionage, and a very dull visual palette, it is hard to recommend Till the End of the Night. It does have a saving grace in Thea Ehre’s defining and genuine screen presence, especially considering its authentic trans performance behind it. While it thinks it’s being polemic in exploring the crossroads between trans and gay experiences, it ultimately leaves you more irritated rather than educated.
It may want you to wait till the end of the night, but by the time it comes around – it’s already way past the morning.
Director: Christoph Hochhäusler
Cast: Timocin Ziegler, Thea Ehre, Michael Sideris
Writers: Christoph Hochhäusler, Florian Plumeyer
