Are You Lonesome Tonight? (2021)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Are You Lonesome Tonight? (2021) – S. Wen

I guess Eddie Peng may be a star in Taiwan and this may have been a vehicle especially for him, directed with a good deal of panache by first timer Shipei Wen.  Peng plays an air conditioner repairman, Xue-ming, a loner it seems, and, in 1997, he hits a man with his van; instead of leaving him dead in the road, he drags him into the tall grass by the river. We then follow Peng as he suffers moral recriminations, especially when he sees the missing person flyers being distributed by Sylvia Chang, playing the victim’s wife, Mrs Liang. She’s much older but still kind of sexy.  When Xue-ming arranges to fix her air conditioner, you don’t know what’s going to happen. The film feels humid and languid. Are we heading in the direction of Visconti’s Ossessione? Fate hangs heavy on Xue-ming and on the film – from the opening shot, we know he ends up in prison. He lurks around Mrs. Liang’s neighbourhood. The title comes from a scene in a half-deserted bar where a blind singer tells Xue-ming that he once sang a song for the dead man and he will sing it again (“Are You Lonesome Tonight?”). It seems the victim may have been involved in the criminal underworld. Xue-ming overhears people talking and starts to piece things together.  Eddie Peng lost weight for this film and his method acting shows. It’s a slow-burning neo-noir.  Director Wen keeps things visually interesting, with a grungy mise-en-scene and lots of shots from unusual angles or using reflections; lighting and colour schemes reflect the noir theme. Like the Coens’ Blood Simple, this doesn’t try to innovate, necessarily, it tries to emulate.  A bleary-eyed detective and a cold-blooded killer show up rather matter-of-factly later in the picture. No surprises here but Xue-ming’s moral code keeps him on solid footing even as these complications enter.