Something Useful

Pelin Esmer's film, set on a train. Leyla is a lawyer. She takes a long train journey to meet school friends she has not seen for twenty-five years. In the same carriage is Canan, a nursing student, also in the middle of a journey. Where Canan is going, Yavuz is waiting: a man confined to a wheelchair who has decided to end his life. The setup is those three paths crossing. Leyla is first curious about what Canan tells her, then finds herself inside it. The narrative proceeds largely through conversation, and the train compartment provides a natural setting: people who do not know each other, obliged to pass the time, and what is said does not leave the carriage. What interests the film is deciding: Leyla has been postponing her own life for years, Canan is becoming party to someone else's decision, and Yavuz made his long ago. Pelin Esmer wrote the screenplay with the writer Barış Bıçakçı. Başak Köklükaya plays Leyla, Öykü Karayel plays Canan and Yiğit Özşener plays Yavuz. A strong example for anyone who likes Turkish cinema and quiet drama built on talk. For a viewer wanting incident, the film is almost entirely a journey and a conversation; and its subject is the wish to end a life, directly.