TIFF: Late Autumn

Late Autumn puts Anna (Tang Wei), a Chinese-American, and Hoon, a Korean male escort, on a bus from Fresno to Seattle to find each other. What we see are adequately paced, two-headed character studies. We watch Anna mumble to herself, wear hooker earrings for the first time in seven years, investigate her motel room and relearn normal human interaction. We also watch Hoon and his permagrin fix his hair, talk on his phone, a man trying to exude confidence while running from his client’s husband. We watch them interact although he does all the talking.

The digital photography starts out in faded colours that remind us of foggy Seattle, making Anna’s face look pale and unflattering. Then she meets Hoon again, they walk through streets with potted plants, go to a tiny version of an amusement park and the colour punches its way in. Colour smoothly introduces itself, and brightens up Anna’s face too, the same way that other films about women temporarily out of prison remember how to live again. That’s not a spoiler. And we see a Seattle awake at night.

And it all comes crashing down. Subtlety’s good as a rule, and the characters never talk about the source of pain but instead of plainly hiding it they make excuses and talk about other things. As Anna’s lover tells Hoon, ‘I think you don’t know what you’re talking about’ and accuses him of playing games. Hoon doesn’t evolve and doesn’t help Anna in doing so neither. Rating: 2/5.