Joana Santos’ "Aurora" follows a woman who has relocated from Portugal to a bleak Scotland, where she works as a warehouse picker. The job is the definition of tedious and repetitive – moving through aisles, scanning online orders, and trying to keep up to earn her meager paycheck. It wasn't quite slavery, but it certainly didn’t feel like much better while she and her coworkers collect their minimum wage. Her living situation consists of microwave dinners and infrequent conversations with roommates. A new arrival, Kris (Piotr Sikora), seems eager to shake things up, but when she accidentally damages her phone and the £99 repair bill drains her finances, she’s forced to subsist on almost nothing. Maybe a different job is possible? Regardless, she needs to escape this depressing pattern before it overwhelms her. The film doesn't shy away from illustrating how human life is being automated. Aurora’s existence feels robotic, and the mental fatigue that results is obvious, though unfortunately it also induces a sense of boredom in the audience as well. Its extreme realism is what makes it so slow to watch, and the characters aren’t developed enough for anyone to become invested in her story. The setting serves as a stark criticism of consumerism, highlighted by a team meeting where staff are given cupcakes to celebrate corporate success; however, once that point is made, everything else feels just as stagnant as the message itself. Questions arise: Why is she there? Why hasn't she gone back home? Her emotional and physical separation seems manufactured for dramatic effect rather than feeling believable. The performances are adequate, and with so little dialogue to process, it’s perhaps why I found the whole thing a bit flat.

Source on TMDB