Lonely In The Dusk

There's a bit of paper that focus changes to, specifically a list with three items. In reverse order they are 'urinary tract infection', 'systolic murmur', and 'homosexual behaviour'. You can probably guess which prompts the electroshock therapy which appears in flashbacks but if you felt that an odd set of ingredients, you would be right.

I'm not convinced by Lonely In The Dusk - indeed, there was a brief moment where I was minded to compare it positively to things like Bound or Mulholland Drive, a noirish alleyway and fateful footsteps on a speakeasy staircase show good feeling for style, even space, and then, and then...

It's not impossible for me to believe that a film that so carefully manages an orchestral swell in Kevin Tan's score before lovers kiss and a short shamed stab to shuffling as the women fear discovery can then squander that goodwill with a clumsy use of gender reassignment surgery as a plot device, but it was made easier by seeing it. That's not even the most difficult element of this film, which despite some neat production design veers wildly in tone. This is apparently a début short for Jacky Song, who directs and co-writes with Lauren Delisle. That last is from the credits - if you, like many of us, rely on IMDb at time of writing you'll note that the plot summary is by her but she's not credited on that page. Such is life.

Something this film does not ring true to, despite the quality of at least half of Mashka Wolfe's performance. Though her character is apparently mute, lovers Marilyn and Linda have almost as little to say, and death and dodgy gender politics aside neither does this film. I'll give it some credit for looking quite as good as it does, but in a film that would seem to be entreating us to look below the surface there's an absence of depth.