Night Ride (Nattrikken) is a 2020 short film (16 minutes) from Norway directed by Eirik Tveiten.
Ebba, who happens to be a little person, is waiting to catch a tram on a cold, snowy night during the Christmas season. The tram stops, the operator gets out to use the toilet, and Ebba asks if she can get out of the cold by waiting inside the tram. The operator refuses, citing regulations that forbid him from letting passengers on the tram if he's not there, and then heads for the toilet. Ebba gets on anyway, but while fumbling with the controls she accidentally starts the train, and goes driving off.
Ebba is still fumbling with the controls and overshoots the next stop before she finds the brake. Among the passengers getting on are Ariel, a woman dressed provocatively in leather, and Allen, who yells at Ebba for her poor tram-driving skills. Ariel and Allen start flirting, and Ariel is inviting Allen to come home when Ebba clumsily slams on the brakes again—and Ariel's wig flies off, revealing her as trans. From there, events take a turn.
Tropes:
- An Aesop: People need to stick up for each other and oppose injustice when they see it.
- Bald of Evil: Allen isn't bald but his buddy Benjamin is, which only serves to make him more intimidating when he joins his friend in invading Ariel's personal space and harassing/threatening her.
- Billions of Buttons: When Ebba looks at the control panel and tries to find the button to shut the tram doors. She winds up accidentally ringing a bell and then accidentally starting the tram.
- Brick Joke: The fact that Ebba is only driving the train in the first place because she stole it. She dares Allen into getting into the driver's seat, gives him a crash course in the controls (what she's been able to figure out in a few minutes, anyway), then gets off the tram. At the ending police sirens can be heard, indicating that Allen is about to get arrested for stealing a tram.
- Bystander Syndrome: The film makes a point of showing three other people on the tram, who sit and do nothing as Allen and his friend Benjamin grow increasingly aggressive in their harassment of Ariel. Finally, Ebba comes out from the driver's seat and intervenes.
- Did I Mention It's Christmas?: It's Christmas season, as shown by the Christmas music on the tram and decorations on houses. But that doesn't play a part in the story except as an ironic counterpoint to the hate and the indifference to hate shown on the tram.
- Extremely Short Timespan: Not quite Real Time but pretty close, as a tram makes an eventful trip through a couple of stops.
- Fake-Hair Drama: The whole second half of the story is triggered when Ariel's wig falls off as Ebba slams the brakes, revealing her to be trans.
- Halfway Plot Switch: What starts out as a fun comedy—a woman boarding a tram late at night accidentally steals it—pivots into drama when a character is revealed to be trans.
- Homophobic Hate Crime: It seems as if one is about to happen, as two goons are harassing and threatening Ariel, before Edda intervenes.
- Laser-Guided Karma: The film ends with the drone of police sirens indicating that Allen is about to be arrested for stealing a tram.
- Little People Are Surreal: Averted. While Ebba is a little person, that plays no part in the story, other than possibly being An Aesop about how members of minority groups will stick up for each other when others weren't. Director Eirik Tveiten has said that the character was not written to be a little person and actress Sigrid Kandal Husjord simply won the role at audition.
- Trans Tribulations: Ariel is subjected to frightening harassment on the train when she's outed as trans, and it seems is about to be subject to physical violence, when Ebba steps in.
- Unsettling Gender-Reveal: Ariel is inviting Allen home when a sudden stop sends her wig flying. Naturally, upon finding this out Allen decides to be an aggressively transphobic asshole.
