I had an unusual reason for moving this to the top of my queue: At some point, I had rated it accidentally, never having seen it. Netflix, alas, doesn't allow removal of ratings, only re-rating. Well, worse things have come of accidents. Besides, Pedro Almodóvar produced it, and I hadn't seen any of his work in five years.
In Northern Ireland, unsociable nurse Hanna (Sarah Polley) never has a day off until her employer, under union pressure, orders her to take a month's paid vacation. Instead of heading to a tropical island as suggested, when she overhears in public about trouble finding a nurse for an emergency at an offshore oil rig, she offers her services. The patient, Josef (Tim Robbins), got badly burned and temporarily blinded. In the face of his persistent attempts to break the ice, she gradually opens up to him like she has to no one this side of therapist Inge (Julie Christie).
It's somewhat ironic that anyone would become slightly more gregarious on that rig. The people who choose to work there, especially the few who remain after it ceases operations pending an inspection after the fire, are the kind who value solitude. One keeps to himself even more than Hanna does. Then again, maybe it helps them find kindred spirits.
I spent a good chunk of the 115 minutes wondering how best to diagnose Hanna. She's quiet enough, even to Inge, to come across as rude, and sometimes she turns down her hearing aid to cut herself off further. I could almost relate to that much, but she also throws away barely used soap bars, bought in bulk, and eats the same three foods at every meal when left to her own devices. At no point do we learn what she does in her spare time, provided she allows herself any. It's as if she wants to have as little personality as possible.
The other factor that had me puzzled and a little irritated for a while was the narration. The uncredited narrator sounds like a little girl, but I suspect it's a woman pretending to be one, because few kids can master articulate English with a foreign accent (see the dubbed boy in Charade for a precedent). She talks about undepicted acts, as in "She strokes my hair." I wasn't entirely sure who "she" or "I" was.
It turns out that one particular period in Hanna's life accounts for both her idiosyncratic behavior and the narration: her firsthand experience with the crimes against humanity that occurred during the Yugoslav Wars. She suffers from survivor's guilt as well as PTSD. The film would already have an R rating for occasional swearing, sex talk, and perhaps unsightly injuries, but here's where it really becomes unfit for the faint of heart. Simply hearing Hanna tell about it, with no accompanying audio or visuals, is enough. I'm not surprised Josef cries, and I wouldn't blame fellow viewers for fast-forwarding past the monologue (you know it's over when she gets topless to reveal her scars).
I have mixed feelings about the budding romance between Hanna and Josef. Relationships that start with a nurse and patient don't seem promising. The two have only so much in common. Some of Josef's comments early on probably qualify as sexual harassment. On the other hand, it does appear to be in Hanna's best interest to have him around to help her move forward with life, and he goes to a good deal of trouble to stay with her.
One noticeable element is in the cinematography: multiple slow fades to black, followed by about two seconds of dark silence between scenes. I don't know whether the filmmakers planned it this way, but it does befit a story about a blind character and a hard-of-hearing one who favors silence.
If you opt to watch TSLoW, prepare for long periods without obvious advancement in the simple plot. You shouldn't get bored, but if you do, your boredom will give way to sorrow and anger, hopefully with heartwarming relief in the end. And maybe you could use the reminder about Eastern European conflict, which Inge notes is all too easily forgotten.
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