Quietly paced story of an East German doctor (Nina Hoss) who is sent down to a rural pediatric hospital as punishment for applying to emigrate to the West. There she meets another doctor (Ronald Zehrfeld) to whom she’s drawn, despite knowing that he’s been assigned to report on her to the Stasi. The dialogue is spare–t here’s long stretches where we are watching Barbara and trying to figure out what she’s thinking or why she’s doing something- – but what talk there is, counts. Christian Petzold’s film looks at ethics, personal honor and eventually romance with an absolutely rigorous lack of sentiment. The two leads are wonderful; they sizzle with unspoken thoughts even when they’re four feet away from each other discussing meningitis. The beautiful Hoss is intense, sultry, utterly adult.