Victoria has received plenty of publicity because it is a 2 hour 20 minute film that was shot in one take. That isn’t a unique thing but rarely would you see such an ambitious attempt at a one take movie, featuring a number of locations, a bank robbery, and a chase and shootout. Director Sebastian Schipper shot the film three times in order to find the version he liked the most – I have heard separately it was either the second or third take we finally get to see.
It is undeniably a technical marvel and the biggest reason for seeing the film. Unfortunately, it is also its greatest weakness as this is a movie sorely in need of a good editor. Victoria is a young Spanish girl living in Berlin. One night she meets a group of guys at a club and spends the rest of the night with them, even taking part in a robbery that they are forced to commit. The story is a little implausible as it seems unlikely that Victoria would get immersed in the situation so quickly but I was willing to go with it.
What was more troubling were some scenes that really overstayed their welcome and led to the film getting bogged-down in places. Victoria and Frederick spending time in the café she works in really drags, as does the meeting with a crime boss in an underground car park, and the final sequence in a hotel room doesn’t convince.
On the positive side, Schipper and his cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen deserve a lot of praise for the scope of the film and for keeping it coherent in the action sequences. The film’s other main asset is the performance of Laia Costa as Victoria who presents a complicated character in a sympathetic manner, no matter how bad her situation gets.
Rating: 7 out of 10