Victoria (2015) Review: One Take, One Night, No Escape

Is Victoria worth watching?

Yes. Victoria is one of the most exhilarating experiments in modern cinema, a 138-minute crime thriller shot in a single continuous take that turns its technical stunt into genuine, almost unbearable suspense. Sebastian Schipper and his cast make the gimmick feel like a necessity: because the camera never cuts, the audience never gets to look away. The one caveat is a leisurely first act that asks for patience before the film accelerates.

What is Victoria about?

Victoria (Laia Costa) is a young woman from Madrid who has been living in Berlin for only a few months, working in a café and knowing almost nobody. Leaving a techno club in the small hours, she falls in with four local men, led by the charming, talkative Sonne (Frederick Lau), with Franz Rogowski as his volatile friend Boxer. What starts as a flirtatious walk through the sleeping city, with rooftop beers and easy banter, takes a sharp turn when the group reveals that they owe a dangerous favour, and Victoria is drawn into a plan she barely understands.

Directed by Schipper, Victoria is a German film in German and English, running 138 minutes, all of it in real time. It competed at the Berlin Film Festival in 2015, where its cinematographer, Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, won a Silver Bear for his work.

A single take that means something

Plenty of films have faked a continuous take, and plenty have used long takes as bravura set pieces. Victoria goes further: it was actually shot in one go, across multiple Berlin locations, in the early hours of the morning. The result is not just a stunt. Every decision the characters make has consequences that the audience experiences in real time, with no ellipsis to soften them.

Grøvlen’s handheld camera works like another member of the group, darting through stairwells, into cars and across streets, and the imperfections of the method, an occasional wobble here or a scramble to keep up there, only add to the sense of living through the night alongside the characters. By the time the film shifts into thriller territory, the audience feels as trapped as Victoria.

Laia Costa’s astonishing performance

Holding a film together for more than two hours without a cut would be a feat for any actor. Laia Costa does it while charting an enormous emotional arc, from giddy, lonely openness to fear, panic and something harder. Her Victoria is impulsive and warm, a young woman so hungry for connection that her choices, even the reckless ones, make sense. A quiet scene in which she sits down at a piano in the café is the film’s emotional anchor, revealing a whole life she has left behind.

Frederick Lau matches her beautifully as Sonne, all bluster and boyish charm, and their improvised-feeling rapport gives the romance an authenticity that scripted dialogue rarely achieves. Rogowski brings a coiled unpredictability that keeps the group’s friendliness slightly on edge, even in the lighter early scenes.

Where the real time drags

The method has a cost. Because Schipper cannot compress time, the film’s opening stretch of flirting, wandering and drinking is long, and some viewers will grow restless before the story reveals its direction. The dialogue, much of it in halting English between people without a shared first language, can feel repetitive. That looseness is deliberate, and it pays off, but the first act is undeniably slow for a film sold as a thriller.

Who should watch Victoria?

It is essential for anyone interested in film form, and a thrilling choice for fans of crime films who do not mind a slow build. Watch it in one sitting, without pausing, to get the full effect. It is rated 15 in the UK, with strong language, drug use, gun violence and scenes of intense peril and distress.

If the one-take gamble hooks you:

• Run Lola Run, Tom Tykwer’s Berlin-set race against the clock, a more playful German experiment with time and consequence.
• John Wick: Chapter 4, for a very different take on the long, unbroken action showpiece.
• Further tension on the thriller shelf.

The verdict

Victoria is a remarkable fusion of technical daring and raw emotion, a single night in Berlin that becomes a gripping story of loneliness, loyalty and bad decisions. Its slow start is the only real flaw in a film that proves a gimmick can become an art form in the right hands.

Rating: 4.5/5