Something Useful

*With the participation of the film crew.

After a five-year break from filmmaking, the award-winning director of 10 to 11 and Watchtower, Pelin Esmer, delivers her most profound and accomplished piece of work to date.

Both from a technical point of view and in its nuanced delineation of the characters, Something Useful offers the viewer a truly rewarding cinema experience. It is also a film that calls for thought. Something Useful is built around the chance encounter between Leyla, a poet on her way to a high-school reunion 25 years after graduating, and the much younger Canan. It then pitches the two women into a situation that will change their lives irrevocably. Yavuz, a quadriplegic who is bedbound and consequently dependent on the care of another person, wants to end his life; but because he is physically incapable of executing the act himself, he must find someone to do it for him; someone who will effectively be killing him. Cue the appearance of Canan who, with the muddle-headedness that comes of being a young student nurse, agrees to take on the task. Towards the middle of their train journey together, Canan begins to open up to Leyla about it, unaware at this point that Leyla herself will be drawn into her thorny predicament. As for Yavuz, when greeted by the arrival of Leyla as well as Canan, he silently answers the question of what would make life worth living for another day.

Ecem Sen