Ivo (Minna Wündrich) spends her days tending to terminally in poor health sufferers. In her capability as a palliative care nurse, she’s not liable for saving them — that’s the medical doctors’ concern — although this 40-ish single mom does her greatest to hearken to their complaints and ease their ache. It may be a draining expertise, each bodily and emotionally, and Ivo typically bends the principles in ways in which make her without delay extra relatable and fewer saintly than her job may counsel.

With “Ivo,” writer-director Eva Trobisch doesn’t dwell on the morality of her title character’s decisions, focusing extra on the stress between this lady’s optimism and the burden of her work. Trobisch’s powerful, observational drama builds on the promise of her 2018 debut, “All Is Good,” a few younger lady decided to not let a sexual assault derail her life. Right here, the German filmmaker delivers one other stripped-down, completely unsentimental portrait of somebody overwhelmed by the sentiments she retains bottled up inside.

Whereas the 2 characters are fairly totally different, there’s a consistency to Trobisch’s strategy that marks her as an essential new voice. Named one in every of Selection’s Administrators to Watch earlier this yr, she received the Heiner Carow Prize on the Berlinale — an award earmarked for rising German helmers. With “Ivo,” this plain new expertise poses a easy however important query: Who cares for the caregivers?

Ivo has nobody to offer the consolation she offers others — a tragic irony when you think about that figuring out she’s being watched by an empathetic viewers may alleviate the profound aloneness she experiences. Then once more, if Ivo had been the topic of a documentary, she’d little question tailor her habits to the digital camera crew, whereas Trobisch’s docu-adjacent strategy (which locations Wündrich alongside non-actors) feels extra trustworthy. Although scripted, Ivo’s life feels real, made up of messy, seemingly mundane particulars.

More often than not, she comes throughout because the unsung hero in a thankless occupation. However not all the time. In a single scene, Ivo injects herself with painkillers meant for a affected person, in order to really feel numb. In one other, she swipes by profiles on a relationship app, scoffing at these in search of connection — it’s distraction she’s after. She picks a stranger, meets up with him at a bar after which lies, telling him she has to get residence to the babysitter when she’s had sufficient. In reality, Ivo’s daughter is sufficiently old to be impartial, making preparations to depart residence that sign one other type of loss to a girl who’s continually surrounded by it.

The film follows Ivo on her rounds, visiting a variety of ailing sufferers within the houses the place they’ve organized to obtain their care. In so doing, Trobisch turns the general public’s consideration to a topic most of us favor to neglect, whereas the clipped modifying type — which jump-cuts briskly between scenes — abruptly forces audiences to reorient to every new scenario because it arises. That tactic places viewers within the place of attempting to make sense of sure patterns, as Wündrich’s face and the recurring house of her automobile — a cell cocoon the place she takes breaks to sing, smoke and cry between appointments — present a sort of continuity.

Trobisch presents Ivo’s life in items, and never all the time in probably the most handy order for us to create that means. Early on, she introduces a girl with a degenerative situation named Solveigh (Pia Hierzegger), who appears youthful than Ivo’s different prices. A lot later, we be taught that she and Ivo have been pals for years, which complicates their dynamic, as does Sol’s need for assisted suicide, which matches in opposition to every thing Ivo’s line of labor stands for. Trickier nonetheless, Ivo is having an affair with Sol’s husband, Franz (Lukas Turtur).

After 20 minutes of depicting Ivo as a complete skilled, Trobisch takes us right into a lodge room the place she’s organized to satisfy Franz. It’s an off-the-cuff, disarmingly frank scene — paying homage to the same tryst in one other latest German movie, “Toni Erdmann” — that complicates our notion of Ivo in the absolute best approach. For the remainder of the movie’s working time, she’s a girl of secrets and techniques. She desires to honor her pal’s needs, however she’s hardly disinterested.

At one level, Ivo tells one other affected person’s spouse, who’s paranoid that her dying husband will rewrite his will to depart every thing to Ivo, caregivers aren’t allowed to just accept bequests, legally or ethically. However what of this case, by which Ivo stands to “inherit” a lover after Sol’s passing? The film sees this query all through, multitasking their relationship together with Ivo’s different obligations. Trobisch isn’t an particularly plot-centric storyteller, which makes this thorny love triangle the movie’s most compelling thread. Dying is a traditional a part of Ivo’s work, however right here she’s put within the horrible place of anticipating the demise of a pal, half-hoping it might imply a recent begin in her personal life.