Midnight Runner  ★★½

INVESTING your time in a slow-burn drama is fine if there is still a satisfactory pay-off at the end.

Unfortunately that’s not the case with Swiss film Midnight Runner.

Despite being acclaimed by many critics, the film is only genuinely engaging due to the central performance of Max Hubacher.

The young Swiss actor is required to emote throughout the film almost completely through facial expression and, for the most part, he manages to hold our interest.

But the minimal script and character conflict also makes the film difficult for an audience to truly connect with.

Based on actual events, we are told on an initial title card that Hubacher’s character Jonas Widmer and his brother Phillip were abandoned as young children and did not speak for some time.

When we meet Jonas it is 20 years later and he is taking part in an annual cross-country running race. He slightly injures his foot in the closing stages and is beaten to the finishing line.

We learn that Jonas won the same event the previous year with his brother supporting him but Phillip has subsequently died.

Jonas is in fact a highly promising runner who could potentially make Switzerland’s Olympic team. However, unbeknown to his coach, mother or girlfriend, he is still suffering the trauma of losing Phillip.

He cannot sleep and finds himself tempted into crime while running the streets late at night.

Debut director Hannes Baumgarten and his co-writer Stefan Staub ask a lot of their audience, providing the barest amount of detail to help you piece together what their central character is thinking.

This need to watch the film in a constant state of psychoanalysis is fine to a point, but eventually becomes tiresome, particularly when key sequences of the film become repetitive.

Baumgarten works well with his cinematographer and editor to create a sense of Widmer existing in an environment but never really being part of it, reinforcing his mental and emotional disconnection from those around him, whether they are friends or strangers.

The only true connection he seems to have at times is with girlfriend Simone (Annina Euling) but we also feel her pain when she asks Jonas to explain what he is thinking, only to be met with stony silence and pushed aside.

Luckily we do have the performance of Hubacher who is also in another German release called The Captain which looks more promising.